The coordinates he's been sent have led him to a coffee house on the outskirts of the city in Pakistan. It's strange. The air is jovial, with men and some women milling around, laughing at the top of their voices and speaking Urdu in a slang he wouldn't understand very well at first listen, and a tension permeates the air just under all this. 

He knows the political climate here is rocky at best, especially with the new Ahmadhis gaining ground against the Ahrars. But Pakistan is deeply politically charged at its heart and conflict is woven into the making of this place.

Partition was a mess, that much is sure. And the resentment for each other, for the Hindus, for the British government, for the white man, runs rife everywhere. But the people are tired and they want peace. 

He sticks out like a whore in church. But the locals are friendly enough when he asks them things, and become friendlier still once they learn he speaks the language. There's genuine delight in their realisation that the white man has deigned to learn their tongue, and they soon become less hesitant and offer him friendship with his coffee.

He waits, and watches. R could be anyone, anywhere. Sleeper agents have only become more common since the war ended and they had the Russians to contend with. Just being so close to their border makes his skin itch. 

After about ten minutes, there's a plate of sweets set in front of him that he didn't order. He's never seen the server before, and he's gone just as soon as he appeared. Instead of one of the rolled up sweet pastries that should be amongst the rest of the sweets, there's a chit of paper. 

'Could you be any more obvious? You could have at least dyed your hair. Come through the back. You're meeting with the Siren.'

The way he sees it, the Indians and the Pakistanis and whoever had their wars and feuds and shit, the limeys were better at it until suddenly they weren't, and white or brown or whatever you don't get to pretend you weren't holding a sword too, it goes around and it comes around and what matters right now is fighting the reds, so here he is.

They do make good coffee, though. And he likes foreign languages and he likes making friends. 

Anyway, this could be a trap but it probably isn't and if it is the thing to do is spring it, so he pops a pastry into his mouth (damn the locals know what they're doing, and in the experiments they told him he was pretty much safe against poisoning attempts unless it was literally glowing), whistles at a waiter to get him more of that whipped coffee shit, and wanders aimlessly through to the back.

He was pretty sure an obviously American guy with dyed hair trying to pretend to blend in would be more suspicious than a loud blond Yankee with fuck-all to hide, but let's be real they're all making this up as they go. 

Naturally, everyone watches him. Subtlety has truly never been his strongest suit or his preferred one (why sneak around when you can break down the door and get the job done much quicker).

There's someone guarding a door with a gun and he throws a hostile look at him.

"Password?" he demands in Urdu. 

Big friendly smile and even-more-badly-accented-than-he-normally-does Urdu! "Yeah, hey buddy, I looking for the bathroom, someone told me called 'Siren' or something???"

A look of utter disdain, and then he raps on the door with the barrel of his gun. Someone calls something from inside and he nods at Caragon. 

What he steps into is an office. Actually rather nice, good light, cool, hung with patterns and things on the walls that aren't covered in shelves of dossiers. Most likely they're fakes and the real ones are hidden somewhere. 

At the dark wooden desk sits a woman in a green shalwar kameez, the colour of the flag, and her warm brown skin makes it look striking. It's simply patterned so as to not take any more attention than necessary. It doesn't work. She's arguably rather stunning - full lips, dark eyes, luscious hair that tumbles over her shoulders, a sweet face with a scowl that reminds him of a cat. 

He likes cats. Hates dogs. 

"Finally. I sent Hussain out there five minutes ago. Were you finishing your coffee?" she asks, her voice dripping in sarcasm. Her English is only slightly accented in that sharp lilt people have on this side of the world. 

"Yeah, it's good round here. And id you want me here in less than five minutes, you need to damn well say so, lady, or I'm doing it in my own good time. Now who the hell are you?"

"Yes, I suppose you all have ample time when your country is usually the one dropping the bombs and making the borders," she remarked idly, scratching something out on a file she was working on.

"Have you been briefed, or do I have to hold your hand through that too?" 

Oh for God's sake. "Yeah, it's nice to be the winners, you should try it some time. And you can hold my hand any time you feel like it." 

Finally she looks up at him, icy brown eyes and imperial smirk. It should not look so harmonious on her face but it does.

"We've received reports of a paramilitary organisation with heavy ties to the Russians attempting to infiltrate our Congress." The heavy emphasis makes it clear that the infiltration is more of a Charles-style definition than an R definition. "Rats and urchins have given us locations. It's our job to hit each one, find out what we can, work to the top, and let the special forces know where to hit and who to arrest. Samje?" 

"Sounds pretty simple. I'm feeling like the old "fake American defector" plan, you can distract anyone who looks sharp enough to catch me out?"

She raises an eyebrow at him. "They'll smell you from miles away, Agan. And you'll get too many questions. I won't be allowed within fifty foot of the place. We need someone else." 

"You want three people in this operation? Nah. We need a way to get one of these bastards when they're not in their secret hidey-hole. We scope the place out nice and subtle, identify one of them, get hold of them, get it out of them."

She stares at him. R is not impressed. 

"And when he squeals? Pigs for the slaughter raise the highest bids here." Figuratively of course. That would be haram.

"He'll get more money for ratting us out than we can give him to stay quiet. No, here we deal in subtlety and espionage the proper way. I'm sure you're not familiar with this approach," she says, muttering the last bit under her breath.

She hands the file to him with a list of locations on the front. "Scope these out. I've located them as potential fronts. An American man visiting a brothel won't raise many eyebrows."

There are, conspicuously, two that are already crossed off the list. 

"Uh-huh, you know what, have it your way. How'd you rule these two out?"

She smirks. "I'll be getting to those myself." 

Huh. God only knows how they do things round here. Is she posing as customer or employee? "So, what, you're a woman of... interesting tastes? Or negotiable affections?" He smirks.

She pouts in fake sympathy. "What a shame for you that you'll never find out. Now get out. We meet back here in a week." 

"Woah, steady on, lady, I just got here."

He feels pretty dumb just standing here arguing with a lady but somehow she just gets under his skin. 

...Part of his job is to not get the locals even more pissed at the white man, isn't it. He probably shouldn't talk to a girl like that, agent or not. He can already see her bristling. She's probably scared. What with being a woman tangled up with dangerous people and great big American soldiers.

"Listen, ma'am, I think we got off on the wrong foot. You're doing good, here. You're helping us out, we'll make sure you get taken care of when we sort this out, OK?"

"How gracious of you!" she says, her eyes lighting up. "I'll be so thrilled for you to do all the work and mess up the operation I've been running for most of a year. It would truly be an honour to see you get beat up by the wrong people when you make a wrong move."

Her voice is dripping with sarcasm and her accent lilts in a way he recognises from being on the lines: did she go to school in England or something? 

Nobody's ever landed a blow on him. "Yeah, not gonna be a problem," he snaps back before he remembers himself. "I mean, it's sweet of you, ma'am, but don't worry about me. Nobody's going to hurt me or you, OK? Why don't you tell me some more about yourself?" He can't help but feel like he keeps losing control of this conversation.

She just laughs at him, standing and rounding the desk to lean on it in front of him. She flutters her very long, very pretty lashes, with brown eyes that sparkle like a princess's. There's an innocent look on her face that feels foreboding, like she's going to say something cutting-

"You have no idea what works here, Gora," she says softly, hissing the word out somehow. "We were born of violence, here. Did they tell you the brutality that came out of partition?"

It's belated, but now that she's close to him, he can see a thin scar that starts at her collar and disappears under her shalwar and dupatta. The faint droplets of gold in her ears sparkle invitingly. 

"Yeah?" He's drawn closer as though by a magnet, eyes blazing, and he towers over her. He knows he should do something diplomatic, but he can't remember it over the sound of his heart pounding. "You want me to call you names, too? You wanna pretend you guys got no blood on your hands?"

He smells like wood smoke and coffee and his gaze is so bright.

"Or are you gonna just tell me what I need to know? 'Cause last I checked we're on the same side here." 

A corner of her mouth tilts up cruelly. "Oh, I want you never to forget the bloodstained soil of this land. Remember how we came to be. And remember what will  happen to you if you fuck this up."

Even curses sound so sweet in her voice. She doesn't break his gaze. Hers is icy and cool, but her pulse hammers on that spot on her neck which the sash doesn't cover. He's pretty sure that's the spot she must have sprayed her perfume - roses, and the fragrant night jasmine they grow on all the streets and terraces here. 

His breath hitches, and he fights the mad urge to lean in closer and breathe deep. "Yeah," he croaks, almost groans, "you- you don't need to motivate me." He leans a little closer, steadies himself. "How do I know you can be trusted, then?" It sounds strong out loud, a little cocky, but inside he's scrambling to get his balance back.

She leans in slightly, tilting her head just so, and now they're sharing air and she is so close she can count the grey flecks in his eyes and he can see that hers are a rich honey brown when the light catches, and he can smell cinnamon and cardamom on her breath. 

"You don't," she breathes, and the words travel through him and down to a very particular place, raise the hairs on the back of his neck.

"Hussein."

The door opens, and just like that, the string between them snaps. Hussein holds the door open expectantly. 

Oh. 

He grins and breathes in sharply, feeling the warmth radiate from her, and it feels like he stands there forever. That scent...

Of course.

"Until next time, ma'am."

He turns, winks at Hussein, and strides out of the room. 

"Listen, Agan. You're costing the agency a lotta time here. These long-distance calls shake dîmes out of our pockets every time you take a breath to tell me more about this girl. So she's rude. So she's kicking you around like a priest to a gigolo. Work with her. She's a girl; girls love you. Do something with that," his superior says with a sigh.

Carter can imagine the looks he'll give the other guys in the bullpen; 'Greenies', he'll mouth to everyone. They love calling him that and he hates it, but it's stuck, because in the last few years he's been there, they say he runs at everything like a new agent would. They keep him around because his Pop's high brass and the running into walls and knocking them down actually helps a lot sometimes.

He misses the guys. He misses New York. It's easy, and familiar. And whatever else this place is, it's... Not. 

"Acknowledged, sir," he grinds out, and slams the phone down hard enough to dent the casing. 

He leans his head back. Nothing for it. 

He's actually pretty good at getting a read on places, and the first few sites That Woman pointed out aren't much. Another few have enough clientele he recognises from the American embassy to rule them out, unless the commies are dumber than they look. 

The others...

The others are the ones she's supposed to be scoping out. 

His usual play is to very visibly drink more than he should be able to handle - he doesn't know why, but he can drink anyone back home under the table, down to the old British Intelligence guys who've been drinking nothing but beer since the Middle Ages and that Ruskie defector with the homemade vodka - and see who'll join in, or failing that see what people say when they let their guards down in front of a drunken man. 

And yep, there sure are more guns and quiet men with hard eyes wandering around than you'd really expect. 

It breaks the script for them, for him to roll around like this with not an ounce of fear in his eyes, they don't really know how to react, and that's why it works so well. 

One time on assignment they took it as a cue to rob him, and that hadn't gone well for them. Made his job easier, though. 

He's feeling pretty pleased with himself, having got a good few names (or aliases, at least) and tips and now lounging on... some kind of cushioned thing he's trying to remember the word for in Hindi... and getting a dance from one of the girls, when she sways into a flicker of lamplight and he notices the familiar shape of the bruises around her neck and wrists.

Ah, shit. 

One of those kinds of paramilitary organisations. 

He lurches to his feet and staggers to the bathroom unsteadily, then hops out of the window and down the street.

Before the sun comes up he's got everything collated in a file, written in his own shorthand and a simple cipher, and he's all ready to spend a precious few days with his feet up until he has to meet her again. 

... After she's been there. 

...

God fucking damn it.

He'll be back there even more obviously drunk the next night, and the night after that, all week. 

Khan hasn't been there nearly long enough to request her own clients, and crafting her cover has been part of a very long, very complex operation over the last week. Still, some of the girls like her enough to let her go and serve the new American man - they don't like unfamiliar men in these parts.

She's been trained to handle pain. These bruises are nothing. They're unfortunately quite unattractive, though. 

She steps out in a shimmery veil and not much else, leaving her eyes uncovered, and sashays into the room he's in. 

She wants to see how much she can unnerve him. How much can she make him sweat?

Her dance starts smoky and sweet, too precise and controlled to be a true courtesan, but fluid enough to pass decently for one. Her hips undulate like waves, calling the moon down to the ocean, and in a swift move she perches on his lap. Her nails rake through his golden halo, scratching slightly at the base of his neck in a way that makes shivers trickle through him. 

He's close enough to read the fury in her eyes. What the fuck is he doing here? 

He's sprawled in a chair pretty convincingly, his face has a pearly flush (hard scrubbing in the bathroom) and he smells of expensive imported whiskey, but up close his eyes are sharp, and icy. 

There are fourteen armed men here, only one or possibly two of whom are actually security. Three possible points where they're hiding something, probably the back behind the bar. Probably that's where they keep the girls who aren't exactly employees, as such. Three of them look like a plausible threat to mysterious incredibly fucking annoying local contact.

Then she starts dancing and he stops thinking. 

He's hyperaware. Some base and ancient part of his brain is still tracking the whole room, her movements, alert and razor-sharp in isolating anything that could be a threat, but he is... Somewhere else, his pulse pounding and pupils blown as she gets too close. His fingers tremble.

The reason there's sheer drapes covering most of the alcove here is so that the shadows cast mood-appropriate flickers every time someone moves. It's also an excellent way to make sure the employees are treating the clientele well. 

Khan has to keep this up as long as she can. 

With twirling hands and delicate movements, she starts the massaging move they teach all the girls here. She starts at his shoulders, strongly muscled, and moves down his arms, lingering at the forearms a little too long to be official. Her fingers meet his and lead them to the exposed skin between the skirt and blouse she wears.

"We're looking for Usmaan. He's the fence for the higher value products," she whispers, falling into a backbend that bares her stomach to him. "He's a customer. Not a proprietor." 

He is strong. It's harder than it should be to press deep into his muscles, but they do slowly relax.

His whole world drowns in that strange spicy scent and the rich colour of her skin as she draws close enough to touch.

When she guides his hands up to touch her he almost chokes on his own breath. His heartbeat throbs in his ears and he has to try to hide sitting up straighter as his whole body comes to life at her touch. 

When his hands are brought to her, his grip is... Gentle. He holds her and hooks his thumbs under her blouse, running over smooth skin with a warm touch, feeling the bump of the scar there, and entirely without thinking he traces it tenderly with a fingertip. His hands move with the dance and she can feel the pressure, the curve around her ribcage - she's so light to him, so very delicate. His eyes are fixed on hers. 

"He has a favourite girl and he's a betting man," he whispers back. "Short man, nasty temper, armed, drug habit."

A sharp sigh tips out of her at his brush, goosebumps break out all over her skin, her arch at it seems entirely involuntary but she plays it off quickly enough.

She glares at him. He's supposed to play along, not take fucking liberties. 

She's off his lap and rounding the armchair, trailing hands over his chest and neck, and if she's being honest, appreciating the light dancing on his skin. He's so pale it looks like moonlight, like the bright flesh of a lychee before you bite into it. She's never seen skin so golden white. 

Ever since she was young, she's been watching American movies. She wanted to be an actress. Be like Judy Garland and Grace Kelly and Rita Hayworth, command men like dogs and live that life of glamour. Her stepfather told her a good Muslim girl would never be so shameless.

She smirks at the irony now. How shameless can she get? 

The women had always looked so beautiful, though, like deities restrained to human form.

He's just as pretty as one of them. The men here are never this poised, this rugged, the masculinity here manifests in different ways. 

"I can't get close to him," she murmurs into his ear. "And I hate to admit it, but perhaps you can." 

His breath hisses between his teeth as his head lolls back, muscles standing out in sharp relief along his neck. Her skin is so soft.

All the stories other agents ever told about the women here, harem-girls and sultanate princesses, they're all nothing compared to this. He can believe in magic right now. 

It takes everything in him to stay focused.

"What's the play," he murmurs in a low tone.

She lets out a chuckle. For all his bravado, he's frighteningly inexperienced in other ways. 

She can play him like a violin.

She leans in, brushing lips over his neck in a feather-light caress. "Be drunk. Make friends. Rich American man splashing money will win favours here."

Her lips linger near his ear, her hands smooth down his chest and play with the top most button of his shirt. "Make this convincing. Call me 'Yazmine'..." Her words are a soft rush of air. 

Make it convincing? That isn't hard. 

"Yasmine..." his voice is rich, growling, she can feel the tension in his chest. 

With a deft flick of her fingers it comes undone, and her touch is cool on his bare skin. She darts a look at a foreboding shadow outside that isn't moving and seems stopped just outside this 'room'.

"Again," she breathes, slipping her hand further down, almost halfway now. 

Goosebumps burst across his skin.

His gaze doesn't even flicker in the shadow's direction, eyes fixed on her even as he shifts his balance to prepare for what comes next, some other part of him mapping possible weapons and hiding places and angles as he drinks her in. 

"Fuck, Yasmine, just like that, yeah... "

She clenches her teeth to hide a shiver, gods, his voice, she almost wishes she'd given him her name. She's surprised he hasn't asked, hasn't begged on his knees in front of her-

The shadow grows, drawing closer, the jagged outline of a weapon appearing on the side.

"More," she whispers desperately, not sure if the urgency comes from her racing heart or the approaching stranger. 

Kukri knife. He'll use one sharp blow to block and break the wrist, elbow to the face, whatever. 

He only needs one arm for that, doesn't he?

His other hand comes up to trace a line along the soft skin of her neck.

"Don't stop," he orders, the trembling in his voice betraying him. "You're mine-"

The curtain swishes aside and a man walks in, portly but slime enough to show he's still in shape. A roll of something - a map? blueprints? - is stored under his arm.

His lip curls as he spies Khan sitting on the American man's lap, his head curled over her shoulder to reach her neck, and his hands nowhere to be seen. 

"Girl. You're on. Usmaan wants someone new."

Khan swallows hard and stands. Just because she can handle pain, it doesn't mean she enjoys it. 

She leans down to murmur in his ear, "Find me," hoping it's enough, and follows the man out. 

He doesn't look up, lying back splayed as though too drunk to move. 

He waits the count of 30, then rolls to his feet and stumbles vaguely after them, half-full glass in hand. 

Fucking mystery spy woman. It's like breaking out of a spell now that she's stopped - dancing - what a brilliant fucking idea that had been. 

She won't even be grateful when he digs her shapely ass out of the fire, he bets.

He wanders along the wall, glancing idly at girls posed in the alcoves there like pretty empty-smiling statues, towards Usmaan's favourite. He's talked to the man - apparently he's been coming here for years, knew the owner. Nice enough guy, considering. He'd thought. 

He listens ferociously. 

There's the sounds of more dancing, the little anklets chiming with each step she takes.

It stops abruptly, there's a rustle that sounds like a grab for a arm.

"Yes, Sahib?" comes her lilting voice, pitched to seem sweet and girlish. There's a tension that Carter recognises only because he's been the cause of it - loathing.

"I haven't seen you before," a rough, oily voice says, with a boarish chuckle. "I heard what you were doing to the American boy and I wanted your... Services for myself."

A strained a thump, and she lets out a sharp chuckle. 

"We know to be good to you, Sahib. You give us so much business. The American man did too, actually, he's been drinking like a fish." 

Yeah OK that's enough of that.

He waits until there's silence and then crashes in noisily, taking his time so as not to startle him, slinging an arm around the man.

"Usmaan!"

He flops down next to him, reeking of booze.

"Wanted to talk business with you - got some of Uncle Sam's cash you can help me be parted with nice and quick- oh, am I interrupting something?" He winks at the mystery woman, grinning at the look on her face. "Man to man, ask for the thing she does with her tongue, back page of the karma sutra or some shit-" he licks his lips, looking at her - "but we got time, ain't we? Not going anywhere, are you doll?"

Raina looks at Usmaan in a helpless questioning manner, not familiar with the language to understand.

"Yes, sir, we go later..." she says haltingly, in a thick accent. She stands awkwardly, the picture of a woman not sure what to do when men are talking business. 

The American boy is an idiot with money, which is Usmaan's favourite kind of person. He turns away from the girl as though she's ceased to exist.

He switches to worse Urdu than he can actually speak - it makes marks like this relax, because everyone knows foreigners are a little bit stupid. "You don't speak English, huh, dollface? Why don't you show us how you dance while we talk business?" He can't resist winking at her. 

Then to Usmaan, in English - "Listen. You got a lot of shit to move, yeah? Well I can get it across the world away from you if you're interested."

She bows her head towards him, smiling tightly, and begins again. 

Carter is a professional, is he not? Surely he won't be too distracted by her slowly intensifying dance moves, that increasingly show more and more of her flexibility?

At some point a girl brings in another tray of drinks and a box of snuff, which Raina takes with a warning look in her eyes, and presents to the men. Her hand lingers around Carter's as she twirls elegantly and starts in on a massage for his shoulders. 

Well, fuck. 

The drink hasn't touched him but it's hard to keep a story straight like this.

...He can work with that. 

He stares as he lets Usmaan talk about logistics. There's no way he's going to suspect anything right now, with Carter practically drooling, and that's the way he wants it. Sure, he can agree to that. He needs to know where the stuff came from so he can route it away - sure, 10% more for that sounds fine, it's not his money - yeah why not. 

He hopes mystery lady was listening to that conversation. It was probably important.

Americans.

Raina is listening intently but obviously letting none of it on. If they're speaking in English, there should be no chance of her understanding, would there?

She smiles wickedly as she feels him turn to putty under her hands. Her mother had always said she had healing hands. What a shame they've turned to taking life instead of keeping it. 

She leans over him and sits on his lap, curling her limbs just so, to make sure he's holding all her weight. He acts like it's nothing - not even in the way that most people are strong, it really might be nothing to him.

She stares up at him, innocent, and lets the covering drop from her face as she leans in to kiss his neck. He smells smoky, strong and sweet and complex in a way that goes to her head and has her leaning on him for balance more than she used to. 

She's good at multitasking. He wanted her tongue? Perhaps he'll have it, while she listens in on Usmaan's operations. 

Carter knows this is retaliation for saying distasteful things about her. He gets the sense that challenging her to dares would not end well for him.

What he should be doing is getting more information out of Usmaan. This is what her week's work has been for, to attract his attention enough to get into a room with him. They need a name, a location, something to work with. Her fingers pull his hair harder than they should: it's a reminder to stay focused. 

"Focused" is not the word he would use. 

His body sings under her like a live wire, tense and flushed, ready to spring - his breathing is harsh, pupils blown, fingers clenched on his chair hard enough to dent the fabric forever. 

He lets his head fall back to bare his neck some more, eyes drifting closed. 

It's the easiest thing in the world to start to slur his words a little, drawing Usmaan into more and more casual conversation - here, since he likes the bastard so much, he has a little of that good stuff from the states in a paper sachet - where the hell do they find these girls anyway - this is the kind of operation that could scale, if he's got the stones to get more shit faster -

...Americans have their good points.

The girl keeps looking over at him even as she climbs all over the American boy. Perhaps she thinks it will please Usmaan if she keeps him nicely distracted? He's not so cheap to buy, but she has her uses. Later. 

Yes, boy, he's been in this game a long time. One meeting and Carter can more than even he can possibly move. The Canal St boys have some high-up friends and more hot shit than he'd believe all of a sudden, it's not stopping any time soon. He doesn't know where they're hitting, not his end of things, but, he hastens to add, he knows exactly who does know, here, Carter should go talk to him, say Usmaan sent him, they all know me. Really Carter doesn't need to bother. The police won't give him trouble if he works for Usmaan, he can sort that out. 

And that's just enough to get them moving. Perfect. 

She lets out an unhappy sigh at Usmaan's ignorance, her eyes flashing at Carter when the crime lord isn't looking: 'Good, now get out of here'. She sidles in next to Usmaan, sliding a hand up his chest, hoping to take his atrention; the ambitious courtesan girl trying to win his favour.

All the girls here want to get out. Most of them come from trafficking (which is not their mission, Raina reminds herself) or do a little on the side for extra money. The good ones, the ones that are pimped out to Usmaan's friends and favourite political pawns, have the chance to move away if the men buy them up.

It's very risky, but if Carter can handle the arms side, perhaps Raina can make headway on the trafficking. It's not their mission. Her superior would be furious if it went badly. 

But if it succeeds... These girls can start thinking about life beyond their bruises and scars. 

If Raina gets far enough into the brothels. If she can convince Usmaan tonight, convince him that she's ambitious and power-hungry like the rest of their high fliers. 

Her hand drifts to his thigh, idly brushing crumbs of powder off his slacks. It's a teasing touch, laced with intention. 

He is, unfortunately, too busy being deeply unconscious. 

It wasn't just cocaine in there, it turns out. 

The girl moving away from him is like a bucketful of cold water. 

Right. Deep breath. He's not actually drunk. 

Mission success! That's more than enough to go on. He'll... sigh... compare notes with super annoying mystery contact, receiving no thanks obviously, work out where exactly these mafia-wannabe fucks are, let Langley know, take it from there. Washington wants the locals on-side, so he can probably talk pa into making it a cleanup job, and then he can bust the girls out of here, easy. Give him a month, tops. 

He looks over at her. "You all right, sweetheart?"

She stares at the unconscious crime lord and then looks back at Carter. 

"What. Have you done," she hisses out in a low breath, tapping the man's cheek to wake him up. He does not.

She whirls on him. "What the actual fuck are you thinking? When he wakes up he's going to realise what happened and the whole operation is blown to fucking pieces! You narcissistic SELF-CENTRED, conceited, pig-headed CUNT."

He smirks. "Settle down, ma'am. I carry him outside, get his buddies, guess some guys just can't hold their shit, y'all can look after him, right? 'Snot the first time for our pal here."

"The problem is not getting away! The problem is our integrity being ruined because you couldn't fucking keep it in your pants! Did it really make you that jealous? Grow up Carter."

She seethes at him, her fingers crinklimg like they itch to be around his throat (again, just not in such a sexy way this time).

"You've possibly compromised the rest of the mission, and all of my hard work from the last six months. Do you know how fucking long it took me to gather that information?"

Her voice is still pitched to be smooth and sultry so as to not attract attention, and it's weirdly terrifying to put the voice together with the incandescent rage of her words.

Raina leans over him threateningly. "Clean this up. We're going to my superiors tomorrow. I want you off this case. I'll do it all my fucking self."

With a final acidic glare, she sashays out. 

Her ass is rather shapely after all.

He comes to, blurrily. 

He's in some kind of alleyway, sprawled on the floor like a corpse-

-He was in there all alone, he has half a dozen enemies who'd pay to watch the light leave his eyes-

A flash of panic-

"Woah. Steady on, buddy. Here."

He has water, and a little brandy.

"Take it easy."

The American is looking at him with frank respect in this quiet alleyway.

"I gotta say, man, I've never seen anyone do three of those and still have a pulse. You good?" 

He drinks. Breathes. Looks a little unsteadily into Carter's earnest blue eyes.

Fuck, that could have been nasty. Good thing he's here with the world's dumbest American. Wouldn't hurt a fly. Dragged him out of there without even robbing him.

Usmaan gives him about a month around here. 

...Unless he does something.

He sighs.

"Thanks. Listen, man - I owe you. Come- all right, give me a minute. Yeah. You come with me, yes? I have things to talk to you about."

Thank God almighty for the boffins at HQ. Fuck knows what they put in there. 

"Sure thing, man. You need a hand?"

He saunters into the meeting place where he met mystery lady, grinning like the cat that got the entire dairy farm. 

"Morning, ma'am. You're welcome, by the way."

She stands up and doesn't look at him, doesn't say a word, just stalks out of the office and deeper into the coffee house warren. 

Hussein holds the door open so presumably he's supposed to follow. 

They go through three sets of doors, two tunnels, and up a flight of stairs before they reach a brass plate on a door which Carter's rough Urdu tells him says Detective Shoab Malik.

She enters without knocking - are they expected - and stands in front of a simple looking bald man in his fifties, who is typing a telegram out. 

Raina starts her rant without even waiting for acknowledgment. She complains about her months of work, Carter's pigheadedness, its implications for the rest of the mission. 

Malik's gaze has rested on her for nearly seven minutes until at last she pauses for breath. At this moment it turns to him, impassive, mildly interested, not unkind. 

He turns on the full-beam charm. Small professional smile, steady look, firm handshake.

He doesn't even glance at That Woman.

"Morning, sir. On behalf of the US government let me thank you for reaching out a hand to work with us. I apologise for the loss of cohesion on this mission, but after your operative unexpectedly vouchsafed to me that she was unable to establish contact with the target, I was obliged to improvise. I've established close connection with a key local figure in the black-market arms trade, and I have here a file-" he produces it from his briefcase as he speaks- "based on information he provided under oblique interrogation detailing the operations of the major local crime families, possible contacts, and upcoming plans."

Langley got a rather more detailed report over the phone, which means he hasn't slept at all, but it is going to be so worth it for the look on her face. Months of work to get close to this, huh?

"I also established an ongoing relationship with this contact and a personal recommendation to the figures noted in Appendix B, if there's anything else you'd like to know. Hope this makes up for the confusion, sir."

"I did not vouchsafe that I couldn't establish contact, it just seemed like a stupid idea to go in on a secondary relation as opposed to a primary contact! And the bond you established is after you drugged him! You created a liability out of huge risk just to satisfy your ego!" she exclaims, throwing her hands in the air.

She is fuming. Fists clenched, jaw tight, fiery eyes, and posture ramrod straight, the whole nines. "I won't work with him anymore." 

Shoaib straightens a pen on his immaculate desk, having leafed through the file briefly enough to assert Carter's operations. He clasps his hands together and looks calmly between the two.

"Am I dealing with children?" he asks mildly.

This sets her off again, saying she can't be an effective operative without knowing what her partner is doing, having agreed on some kind of plan before that and completely derailing it and potentially compromising her position-

He holds up a hand, and she falls silent. He scratches something out on the report, and hands the dossier back to her. "Agent Khan. Agent Agan. Do find a way to work together. I don't want any more paperwork."

He looks back down, a clear dismissal, and Khan damn near stomps her foot as she storms out of the office. 

Oh finally some sanity. He likes this man. 

It was obviously all "Agent Khan's" fault, but he gets it, got to let the baby have her bottle. He's listened to dad talk about rogue agents often enough to know the score there. 

"Acknowledged, sir," he says crisply, nods to the man, and discreetly and professionally follows her out of the door. He even waits until they're in private again to talk to her.

Then he grins a shit-eating grin. 

"Let's talk about how we can work together, Agent Khan. Is that your first name?" He's very professional. Only the look on his face marks him as anything other than a consummate spook. 

"Is Agan yours?" she bites back, striding purposefully through the halls. She's wearing low heels today, and they make an authoritative click as she walks, the crowd parting like the sea. Her shalwar kameez is an attractive pale yellow that brings out the warmth of her face, and is stitched with white embroidery.

"I make the plans. You follow. This is a Pakistani operation on Pakistani soil. That's how we work together." 

Oh he loves this so much can he please never leave this building. "Easy there, Miss Agent, you heard the man, gotta be diplomatic. You know how to do that? Like, I can be diplomatic here, and say sure, I'll follow your plans when they're good plans, Pakistani or not. Now you say 'Thanks for saving my ass and completing my mission in one day', and I say 'you're welcome'. Ready?"

She whirls, and she's forced him back into the wall with a surprising amount of grace. Her arm holds him at the chest, and if she slips it up she can easily choke him. She looks like she's considering it, too.

"Your stupid bull-headed approach worked today. Tomorrow, it will fail, and the consequences will come down on all the people trapped in that hell hole. Whenever you want to do something stupid, you tell me first. Understand?"

By the gods, he gets under her skin. She can't remember the last time someone had made her so angry. His stupid perfect white teeth and chiseled jaw and straight nose are so stupidly perfect she itches to punch them.

This close, the memories of last night come back to her. How he'd shivered at her lips on his skin, how his fingers had trembled the first time she touched him. How they'd shared breath, shared a second of electricity.

Fucking American. 

He should... hold his breath or something, so he doesn't breathe her in. Yeah. He doesn't do that. 

As though drawn by a magnet his gaze flickers down to where her hand rests on his breast, and he swallows hard. 

...So she wanted something done about the girls there too. Oh. Of course. He'd thought she was too ice-cold for that. 

Maybe little miss Agent has a heart after all. 

Maybe he can work with that. 

He's still going to have fun with this, though. He smirks.

"All right, done. I'll try and tell you next time I'm gonna save your ample ass and finish your mission for you. Do you one better, I'll let you in on what I got on where they're getting those girls from, see if we can give them some headaches there until we shut the whole thing down. I got a condition, though." He looks down at her, leaning forwards a little bit, so she can either back down and pull her hand away or realise how she can't hold him back.

He almost hopes she does try to choke him instead.

She doesn't quite choke him, but she doubles down. Or she tries. She just looks perturbed when she can't force him back, but she stays. 

One perfect eyebrow quirks up in question. Little Miss Icy is back. 

Oh this is going to be so much fun. He looks down at her.

Total sincerity.

"Try to do what he said and find a way to work with me." He radiates sheer total professionalism. "Come and get a drink with me. Off the clock. See if we can get along a little better. For the sake of the mission." And so he can watch her fume some more. 

She does release him, then. Her teeth are nearly grinding. Patronising idiotic arsehole of a whore mother-

"It's Pakistan. The only places serving alcohol are unfavourable establishments like the one we went to yesterday." 

He smirks. "You need to get out more, Agent. And I didn't think you were uncomfortable with unfavourable. Would you rather get a milkshake?"

"If your palate is as juvenile as your mission plans, we can certainly go out for the world's most boring cold drink," she says, starting back to her office and the entrance to the coffeehouse.

"Lassi is the preferred drink here. Or falooda, or cold coffee, or really anything apart from that bland American shit."

She look she cuts him at the last part makes it clear that he is also included in that description. 

"Hey, don't knock it 'til you've tried it. If we drank enough for me to notice you'd be on the floor anyway, so why don't you pick your favourite."

There's a pregnant pause in the conversation. 

Then, haltingly, in a small voice he's not heard from her she says "Actually, I don't know. I've never had any before." 

Well that hits him like a punch in the gut. Nice going, Carter.

...Unless she's yanking his chain. Which she probably is. What works in both cases-

He shrugs, and this time it's a genuine smile. "I guess it'll have to be all of them, then."

She looks a little startled and horrified. She might be older than him, but she does have a little innocent glint in her eye he lost a while ago. 

Well. Only one way to find out, isn't there?

While she might have been lying about not having drunk before, her intoxication right now seems to track with that. She is leaning heavily on her arm across the bar, drawing curious looks from many of the male patrons here. She turned heads when she walked in wearing that red dress with the full sleeves. It's sort of western, in a weird tilted Indian way, that's trying hard to be western but ultimately lacks the simplicity of Western styles. Whatever. She looks nice, and they all look curious. She'll take it. 

She points a slightly off-centre finger at him. "Okay. So. First kill?" 

He leans heavily forwards, sleeves rolled up in the heat, jacket slung over a shoulder. 

Turns out there is actually enough to drink in Pakistan to get him buzzed. 

All right. 

"First mission. East Berlin. Holdout Nazi meetup, bigger than I thought, shit went south real quick - said some things I shouldn't - guy swings a pipe at me, I panicked and punched him and ran. Cracked his skull right open."

He takes a sip. 

"...I was sick afterwards." And nightmares for weeks.

Oh God why did he say that quickly-

He gestures at her. "You?"

She's looking at him with crinkles around her eyes. He's not seen this expression yet. She's regarding him, but not in a cold way. Perhaps the alcohol has loosened her up.

Just his fist? Interesting. The pieces are coming together.

She takes another sip. "I was twelve. There was a man following me and my friend home. He tried to grab her. I had a pair of scissors for embroidery."

She shrugs, taking another sip. "I continued on. She moved away without so much as a thank you." 

"So that's where you get it from." His voice is teasing but the look in his eyes is quite warm. "How - what was it like, growing up here? Apart from - that. "

She flutters her eyelashes at him, raising a hand to her brow dramatically. "Oh, it was terrible. We lived a simple, poor life out on the moors. We never had money to even buy a pakora from a street seller!" she cries, turning heads.

Raina gives him a flat look over the top of her glass. "We lived in the city and my stepfather was a diplomat." She takes a sip, savouring, before continuing. "Now you. Was your life the glorious comfort of the American dream, or the reality of the American scam?" 

He gives her a flat look. They never tell you sarcasm is the lowest form of wit?

"Dad came from nothing, some hillbilly town in the mountains, one bad winter away from starving. Didn't go to school, he still can't really read. Lied about his age to fight the Germans the first time round, got noticed, came back to knock Mr Hitler down, ended up helping start the Agency. By the time I was around he was getting beers with Fr- with the President. Dreams do come true sometimes, ma'am." He's looking at her quite intently all of a sudden, leaning a little towards her, and his gaze is so blue, a little wide and a little flushed with drink. "You don't like us much. Why is that?" 

She gives him a teasing smile. "My apologies. You see, I've learned to be careful of trusting a white man with money in his pocket when he says he's here to help. The last time someone made that mistake, we ended up..." she gestures lazily with her glass to a vague shape around them.

She has to try very hard to remember her words when he's staring at her like that. The pain of the last few years of her life are not as easy to forget, however. She can still hear the shouts and the riots from when she was ten. There were so many men with wild expressions on their faces, like animals released from their cages, like monkeys when they see the last few nuts on a tree. She will never forget chocolate-giving uncles becoming savages who sneered at her on the street.

"Nehru was an interesting character. I have no words for the British. Suhrawardy is an idiot, Ghandi was ineffective, and Jinnah was misguided at best in these later years. But you..." she surveys him as one might see a snake taste the air with its tongue. "You Americans have one finger in many pies, if you will. I have yet to see where your chips and your bombs fall." 

He shrugs, suddenly a little uncomfortable for some reason. "Honestly, I'm just glad we're all still here - that's why I joined up really. Dad saw two world wars, don't want to make it three for three. Not sure we'd have a world left."

He stares off into the crowd. The world just has so many different people in it - he remembers people back home who've never left their own state. 

"I guess that's up to us," he says, raising his glass towards her a little. She's so close, he can breathe her in. 

She looks disappointed for a second, like he's failed some test he didn't know he was taking. 

Of course he sidesteps. There's no honour in a man who wouldn't acknowledge his country's wrongs. 

"It would be, if your country let any of us have a choice in the matter. It's really all up to Washington."

She drains her glass, thumps it on the counter, and stands to leave. 

He's met one of the guys who worked on the A-bomb. Not much more than a kid, really, and the look in his eyes... She knows damn well where the bombs fall. 

What, she thinks her people would do anything different? Where the hell does she think the name Khan comes from, exactly? Turko-Mongol term for "military chief", which is euphemism for "mass-murderer", if you want to play it like that.

He doesn't say that. 

He catches her wrist without thinking, too fast and too strong for her to pull away-

-a flash of a memory, some ice-cold-green steel room, burning in his veins-

-he can feel the bones of her arm, he could break them just with a twitch of his fingers now-

-knows now how to show restraint.

"Hey," he says instead of doing anything stupid, his eyes clear and so blue. "I'm not gonna pretend I like everything my country ever did. I don't think there's anywhere you could say that about. But that doesn't mean we can't make a difference. Do right by each other, for a change. I think that's what America is meant to be."

She can almost believe him, that's the thing. It's so very dangerous for a cocktail of happenstance: this drink, his grip on her arm like he wouldn't let go even if it scalded him, the blue in his eyes and the breaths that tip out of his mouth ever-so-slightly quicker if she's close to him, the way his voice rumbles in his chest so low she has to lean in to hear him.

Raina realises all at once why he's been in this job for so long. It's not even charm; that's not the word for it, his idealism stretches so far beyond a calculated persona. It's... Effervescence. It makes her want to believe. 

So she does. She allows one corner of her mouth to tilt up, allows herself to be drawn back to her seat. "I think I could believe in a world like that. I've always... I've always wanted to." 

"Make it happen, then." He really believes it. Says it like it's the most normal thing in the world. 

He grins. 

"You can start by getting us another drink."

She smiles again, shoves him back down to his seat, and heads to the bar. 

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Khan whispered, her brows drawn into a furrow. She couldn't even see very well from here. 

He's slouched down behind the bushes, his large frame hidden - he knows how to make himself unnoticeable from a distance, to break up the shape of a man for prying eyes. 

"Of course I am," he says in a low mutter. "We get eyes on their operation, we maybe prove the commies are involved in this, which they totally are, we maybe work out where they're getting these girls from, and-" he smirks at her. "Even if we got caught somehow... well, I guess a fine upstanding lady like you wouldn't know, but there's only one thing we'd be doing in the bushes. So where's the risk?"

"Khan," he'd said to her crisply the last time they'd spoken, "I know it was hard on you at first, working with Agan. You've done good work. Don't screw it up."

"Don't do anything stupid."

Khan had barely bitten back her less-than-witty retort of 'it still is', but Shoaib is the kind of man that only really appreciates his own bad jokes. He's been good to her these last few years; never underestimated her, always pushed her. She trusts him enough to know this mission with the infuriating American is supposed to be part of her training and development.

But Ya Allah he is infuriating.

She cuts a look at him. "They recognise me or you and we end up blowing the whole thing."

She takes a breath in. Shoaib wants her to work with him, and really he's not bad; can be charming in the right light. He's handsome like a movie star, and occasionally has good ideas. She's trying to trust him and not dismiss everything he says. 

"Alright. We could split up and get inside from different entrances or go full stealth and take guards out to get inside. Or..." she looks him over critically. "Do you think you might pay for a girl like me as an escort?" 

He actually has a backup plan for if he gets caught or recognised - he's pretty sure he can bluff his way through, with Usmaan's intel - but he's keeping that in his back pocket, thanks. Miss Agent ain't as good an actress as she thinks she is. And it's somehow a lot more authentic when she really is off-guard and angry. 

And he likes impressing her.

He smiles widely at her. "There's things even the dollar can't buy, ma'am. I guess I wouldn't wanna think you were doing it for the money." His gaze flickers up and down, and without even realising it he bites his lip. "But sure. In theory. Absolutely."

She nods curtly. "That can be our cover then. You can be drunk and lost, and ill be helpless and paid for."

She rises into a low crouch, ready to move, her body primed like a coil about to spring. They've seen the shipment entrances on the way in. The guards aren't on a real rotation but they must be tired and have darkness on their side.

Khan motions with a hand signal to go. 

He can be surprisingly graceful for such a large man, slipping forwards fast enough to go unnoticed without making too much noise. 

They're past the dozing outer guard in a heartbeat, and he gets a glimpse of a space like a warehouse-slash-warren - big and cavernous, full of scaffolding and wooden walkways. 

Unfortunately, they've chosen to storm in just as a familiar face is heading around the corner, flanked by what must be half a dozen heavy-set men.

He's been talking business all damn day. It's not his place to ask questions, but this shit is weird. He does high-value goods and weapons, and the weapon supply doesn't make any damn sense - foreign stuff, all the same, flowing like water. The boys here jingle when they walk. The rest is even worse. It's all old artworks and shit, statuettes, temple stuff. He's not one to balk at that, but it's hard to move (at least until the handsome idiot came along) and it's not business as usual, which makes him antsy. 

He's complaining about this in a loud voice as he goes, so he doesn't see them for a split second.

He grabs Raina's waist in a grip like steel, jumps, catches a scaffold, swings them up with a heave, and in a second they're rolling onto a wooden platform above, his hand over her mouth. 

"Stay calm. Keep quiet."

She's unflappable even in the face of this, save for the slight tension in her form when he touches her. Her eyes, calculating, wander over his face as he looks around. 

He's remarkably strong. A few years ago, there were rumours about the Americans coming up with some silly chemical serum to enhance their soldiers, but it got lost in the mist with the end of the war and all the dividing up land and scraping together money. 

Perhaps it wasn't lost to the wind after all, but scattered far and wide enough to avoid suspicion. 

Khan likes it up here. Good vantage point, excellent cover, and convenient ways to get across the space without being spotted. She has many names in the agency, but one of them is the Kali Billi - the Black Cat. High perches and lying in wait is one of her signature moves. They can figure out what's happening and have a great escape route. 

She raises a brow at him imperiously, smirking even under his hand. 

He relaxes a little when it's clear that they haven't been spotted. 

Usmaan and friends don't seem to be moving, though. 

He studiously avoids looking at Raina as he takes his hand away. 

He feels ridiculous crouching here. He's too big. 

"You look like you're having fun," he says in a low mutter. 

She flutters a delicate grin in his direction. "Aren't you?"

There's a glint in her eyes as she surveys the space. She actually... Likes this stuff. The sneaking around, not being caught, finding information, the danger. Perhaps she's not as straight and narrow as she seems.

A few goons enter through a door at the back of the warehouse and exit a few moments later, locking the door behind them.

Delicious. Where there's smoke... 

Khan taps Carter on the shoulder and gestures to the little shed. Surely it's important. 

He nods.

They crawl. He can be stealthy when he needs to, but the problem is just his weight - he has to creep carefully over the stronger joists or give them away.

It does give him the chance to admire the way she moves, though. Lithe, like a panther... who is she...

She chooses that moment to glance back at him and flash him a look that is wry, knowing, and exasperated all at the same time. 

She supposes she can't blame him. He is behind her, after all. 

Quick and silent, she slithers over to the other side, very nearly leaving him in the dust. There's a very large drop down to the shed and there's no other platforms in sight. They might have to just risk it. 

He doesn't even think twice, just heaves himself forwards and over the side. Lands, flexes his knees, straightens up.

...Shit.

He's not supposed to give away how good he is, is he. Ah well. He was never any good at that part, he doesn't know why it's supposed to be important. 

He spins, shrugs, looks up at Raina, and opens his arms invitingly.

He absolutely does not smirk. That would be rude.

The scowl on her face could summon thunder. 

There's nothing for it. Ugh.

She drops straight down as a knife cuts air, nothing more than a slip of shadow in peripheral vision. The floor isn't too busy, and they've timed it just right to avoid any guards. 

She crouches down to pick the lock, making use of a few favourite hairpins designed specifically for this purpose. 

"At some point I want to know why exactly you have the strength of a bull and the speed of a parakeet running from a magpie," she murmurs, making short work of the lock. She darts a glance around to make sure they won't be interrupted, and pushes through. 

He makes sure to catch her very gently and hold her close, bridal style, just to tease her. 

...Fuck that might have been a mistake. Her skin is so warm and so soft where it touches him that it almost burns. Her scent, that impossible musk, it...

He coughs, sets her on her feet. Tries not to blush while she springs the lock.

"Fuck."

They've walked in, right into what seems to be a business meeting. They all stare at one another for a split second - three guards for three ballers, and they can't waste a single moment. 

Khan springs into action, and suddenly the way she moves makes sense. It's nothing he's ever seen before. She goes straight for the pimps, knowing there's enough risk there that the guards won't shoot and Carter will be enough to handle the rest. She moves like a snake in water, like a gecko on a tree trunk - impossibly fast, all her body leaning into every kick and punch and push. She uses their weight against them all and she's too small for anyone to really be able to see her in the half light.

She thinks it's going well for about three seconds, which of course, is her mistake. 

...Huh. He didn't think that kind of thing would work in a real fight. She looks too small to hurt a guy that size with her bare hands no matter how good she is. He figured she used a lot of knives. Shows what he knows, he guesses.

Anyway, the thing is that in a real fight theory goes out the window and fuck knows what's gonna happen, so people basically act on instinct, unless they're really really fast. Nearest guy's going for a gun so he grabs that hand, dislocates the shoulder, throws him into the second guy before number three can be in place to shoot so diving tackle, he rolls to his feet-

One of the guys Miss Agent left on the floor is still moving, and he has some kind of fucking sword thing he's swinging at her-

Again, he acts on instinct. 

He jumps, grabs her by the scruff of the neck and yanks her out of the way, twisting to take the sword-blow on his flank so hopefully it won't bite, kicks the Zorro motherfucker in the chin pretty hard, caves in some other guy's ribcage-

"Are you all right?" he snaps urgently, concern in his sky-coloured eyes even as the blood wells up at his side. 

Behind him is a corpse, still clutching an antique cavalry sword, head twisted back at a horrible angle, most of its face a red-and-white ruin. 

"What are you-" she hisses, halfway to shaking his hand off when she looks around and realises what's happened.

She looks scared and determined all at once. "You idiot. Oh my god, you fucking moron. Are you alright? Put pressure on it, here-" she unwinds a sash from somewhere (there are in fact knives hidden under it) and presses it against his flank, looking around for something to bind it in.

There are some groans from the floor and the place is a massacre so they need to get their information and leave before anyone comes knocking.

Her hands, stained with his blood, are cupping his face, checking his breathing, his pulse, his pupils and whether they're dilated or not. The adorable scrunch in her brows Is back, and this time, it's out of concern for him. "Does your freakish strength translate to accelerated healing?" 

He's grinning like an idiot, isn't he. Thank fuck she's all right. 

Freakish? He knows he's pretty good but-

the knives are so thin and they shine like mirrors, he has to remember the rules, don't thank her don't apologise don't scream-

He shakes himself, suddenly disoriented. He takes the sash and binds the cut tightly with hands that definitely do not tremble. 

He looks up to meet her eyes.

Oh. 

"I'll live," he says softly. He doesn't look away.

She pulls her hands back as soon as she realises she's marring his beautiful face with these crimson stains, even if they do make him even more handsome. Something about the danger of it. 

Yes she has problems she knows. 

"Keep watch. Run through escape routes. I'll try and find something for us to get on with so we don't leave empty handed."

She helps him up, wiping bloodsoaked hands on her dark tunic, and ruffles through the desk and cabinets for anything incriminating that might give them a location, a person to catch, someone to hook. 

He straightens up with some difficulty, wipes his face clean. 

Fuck that stings. It's OK. Chicks dig scars, right?

Escape routes: back the way they came, go deeper and hide, try to make it look like someone else did this, or head for the other delivery entrance to the east. 

"We could try pressing on," he says, managing not to sound like he's in too much pain.

"Can you climb?" she whispers back, shooting him a worried glance.

Back in the suburbs, she used to take care of the local ailments and aches and pains of the ordinary men who lived there. Before the Partition, of course. She's known for a while that this much blood isn't good for anyone. 

She really doubts he can throw her like a trapeze artist again. 

He nods, ashen-faced. 

Raina's search turns up a cache of identical automatic weapons, a stash of banknotes, a map of the city with circles in red, a list of addresses, a collection of photographs of depictions of Shiva, a set of razor blades, and a bottle of bleach.

Does the list of addresses match the map circles? She'll pocket one of the weapons; analyse the images of Shiva for anything strange or out of place. 

All of the addresses have matching circles, but there are many more circles on the map besides. 

The photographs are of many different kinds of image - statues, paintings, tapestries - but in every one, the same unfamiliar depiction, a curiously blasphemous quality: His third eye defaced with some kind of intricate device like a forceps. 

There's not enough time to get to them all. She'll pocket the map and leave the rest, gesturing to Carter it's time to go. It's only been a minute or two since the end of the fight but it feels like an eternity when she's this alert. 

She loops his arm around her neck, stabilising the unhurt side, and gives him a sobering look. "Stay with me, okay? I'm not done annoying you seven ways to Sunday yet." 

He manages a crooked smile. "Wouldn't dream of it." His gaze is a little unfocussed, his words a little slurred, but he can steady himself. 

His arms wrapped around her are strong, and warm. 

Time to go. He limps with her towards the door. 

Beyond there's a rickety hallway, gaps in the planking representing doors off to the side, and it twists upwards - towards an upstairs window, maybe, or a doorway to the rooftop. To the right there's a narrow, battered, well-trodden passageway leading in, and maybe a little way down, as though back to floor level. 

He's in absolutely no shape to be jumping rooftops so ground level is best. In fact, she's betting that he can't actually climb right now. Still, she'll use their earlier reconnaissance to find a likely doorway that leads to an unobstructed window towards the back of the plot. 

He is very warm, and even smelling like blood and sweat, he smells like fragrant wood and coffee. She likes having his arm around her. Allah knows why. 

She keeps her ears peeled for noises or shouts of alarm behind them. 

As their luck would have it, there's just gunshots. 

The burst of adrenaline is like ice-water through his veins, and he grabs her hand and kicks that door as hard as he can-

-it flies off its hinges-

-and then they're running and up and over an embankment and away as shouts ring out behind them, and it's so gloriously free for a moment in the evening sun that he looks over at her and can't help but beam at her, despite the pain and the terror. 

God, she's beautiful. 

He really wouldn't be anywhere else. 

It's not until they've put a lot of distance between them and the gunmen and made it back into the city proper that he stops to think.

It didn't go that badly! Nobody got a good look at their faces, and it's not like rival gangs never try shit like this. He has an alibi set up with Usmaan's people anyway, just came from a meeting with them, and they know he likes to hit a bar afterwards. 

Plus, Raina probably got plenty from that war room or whatever it was. 

A successful evening, in all. 

It's at this point that he collapses from blood loss. 

He wakes to numb throbbing in his flank where the knife hit him, a pillow under his head, soft light filtering in through a window. From the slant of it and the colour, he can tell it's early morning. His wound has been bandaged tightly, and he's in an unfamiliar room.

It's small, but very nice. It looks like a central living room - there's bookcases, a small television, a radio, and the walls are covered in paintings. It's nicely furnished, rich and warm and smells faintly familiar. 

There are no pictures, but that smell... 

Christ alive his head. He hasn't felt like this since he graduated and his buddies decided to really actually test his limits, just for once. 

He staggers to his feet.

It's not all unpleasant. Not at all, actually. Everything is sort of pleasantly soft. He has to really focus hard not to break anything, but he's all right. 

...Oh. 

This is her place.

He loves it immediately.

He runs his fingers over the books, taking in titles.

He wanders to find her, leaning on walls to support himself.

There's only three rooms, one of which is a bathing room (with a lavish freestanding copper bath, the only luxury that seems to exist in this space?) and he finds her in the last one. She is fast asleep on sheets of warm pink, not even covered with the thin blankets they use here, and her hair splays around her head like an unholy halo.

She is so soft, in sleep. Like a flower not yet bloomed, not yet weathered. She looks far too young for her age - how old even is she? She looks barely nineteen like this.

She also snores. She sounds like a fucking diesel generator and it's comforting to know she isn't all perfection and glittering knives. 

Carter feels the overwhelming urge to touch her. 

He reaches out without thinking, and then has the good sense to pull back before he loses a hand.

He'll just... Quietly sit down on the bed next to her, that seems like a good idea. She looks so pretty when she's asleep. 

He's having trouble resisting the urge to play with her hair. 

Maybe he can stay like this for a while. It suddenly seems unbearable to walk back out of this room and idly wander the place until she wakes up, unbearable to be away from her in the cold. 

He leans back against the headboard, eyes not leaving her face. 

The world is so soft, so warm, so dim...

The snores stop abruptly and there's a tense second where he thinks she's woken up. There's a flash and a knife is pointed at him as she struggles to wake, blinking bleary eyes at the intruder. 

"Oh. It's you." She sounds relieved when she sees him and sits up with some difficulty, leaning over to examine his wound.

His shirt, he realises, has been left unbuttoned. And actually if he's in fresh clothes that means-

"No signs of infection yet," she breathes, letting the shirt flank slip back down. Her skin is sleep-warm and soft where it touched his. "Don't rip open those stitches, okay?" she asks, the end caught in a yawn that swallow her.

He's caught her just as she wakes up and starts constructing her mask for the world. She isn't far enough into the process to put up all her stone walls, and like this, she seems... Open. Unguarded. 

"I'll be fine," he says gently, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. "Thanks. I owe you one, I guess." He likes her like this - warm and soft, strangely human in a way she wasn't before. It's so... Jarringly normal. 

...Hold on. His brain catches up to what she said.

"You stitched me up?" She undressed him?

The yawn comes to an end and she runs a hand through that luxurious hair. 

"Well, it seemed against the spirit of our agreement to let you bleed out everywhere after you saved my ass."

She sniffs. "Besides. You would have stained my divan." 

He laughs, probably harder than he should. He's still a little light-headed. "Yeah, I'd hate to inconvenience you."

He glances around her bedroom, not particularly wanting to get up. "This is your place? I'd kind of expected something... I don't know, different."

Frankly, he'd kind of expected more... weapons and bloodstains and shit.

She leans back, and all of a sudden it's very comfortable. They could even be friends, with that lingering smile playing the corners of her lips.

"Pray, tell, what did you expect?" 

His eyes linger on her hair, silky even though she's just woken up. 

"I don't know, really. Guns? Knives? Whips and chains? Something a little more... Agenty."

"Oh, this is just the front. Of course those all exist in hidden panels in the walls and under beds and things, naturally."

Another yawn erupts, and she rubs her eyes, smudging last night's kohl around them a little. It's charming and even pretty.

"Right. Chai is in order and then we need to sort through whatever the fuck is happening down there. Usmaan is mixed up in weird shit."

She starts to climb out of bed, satin white gown fluttering, and puts on her slippers as she shuffles to the kitchen. 

...Is she joking? His eyes dart about the room - nothing looks out of place, but then it wouldn't, would it. 

Right. Chai. Yes. Sounds good. 

He'll help if he can - staying away from the actual stove, he burns everything, he burned cornflakes once - and see what else she'll say when the mask is down. 

"So how long have you lived here?"

She narrows her eyes at him, though it doesn't look very threatening while she's holding a tea strainer. Some of the guard is back - it's easy to be open when you're lounging in bed, but getting up and starting the day means she remembers who she's supposed to be.

"A few years," she says casually, her voice wry. She's caught on. "How long have you been with your agency?" 

"Since a couple years after high school." He sips the chai. It's good. 

The key is not to rise to it. He's still relaxed, the blood loss helps with that. "I just kind of fell into it, I guess. Dad knew the right people."

"How did your father get into it?"

The warmth and softness is suddenly receding very rapidly and it feels more like an interrogation now. She won't quite look at him properly, busying herself with the tea. 

That's what she gets for deciding to be a little softer. People see weakness and they press their advantage. It's the first thing her stepfather taught her.

He sighs. "He joined the army to get away from home, saw what war looked like, says he decided he'd do whatever it took to make sure it didn't happen again. Turned out he's some kind of military genius leader type, always knows what to do, they pretty much worship him." He's not bitter, really. It's just- "I don't know, he's says it's easy, you just do what's in front of you - it's such bullshit. They all expect me to be like him, but," he shrugs. He's not sure if he's even making sense - he feels faint from the injury, punch-drunk. "I'm not him. Never gonna be."

She softens at him again, her brows drawing together. It's hopelessly adorable, is she even allowed to be that cute?

His vulnerability and bitterness draws her in. She's always had something for men with vendettas. It's very familiar in this part of the world.

"Why would that be so bad?" It's hushed, quiet, seems to disappear with the steam from their cups. It's like she kind of already knows the answer, maybe more than him. 

He shrugs again, uncomfortably. He doesn't talk like this with the guys normally. Doesn't have anyone he could say it to, doesn't ever get drunk enough to talk about it to the Agency guys or God forbid Dad. 

It helps that he can't take his eyes off her. She's sweet. It's hard to imagine that this is the same woman who took down three men twice her size, or danced in the club like the Whore of Babylon. 

"I... I dunno." Because then who is he, really? Just a great man's failure of a son?

She's silent for a moment. It's so quiet, but the silence isn't heavy for once. Her gaze falls to his wound, lingers there. 

Then she says, "Raina." 

Raina. The Night.

He's confused for a moment. 

Oh. 

His eyes widen. 

So that's her name. 

He smiles slowly. 

"Pleasure to meet you, Raina. Properly."

That's a mistake, because he should be a stupid American man who can't speak the tongue properly but by God it sounds like a dove taking flight in his voice.

This was a bad mistake, but she's made it now. Why doesn't it feel like a mistake?

She returns his smile, locked in his gaze and the softness of it. "The pleasure is mine, Car." 

He just beams at her, and in the scented steam of the chai and the haze of his swimming vision, she seems an angel. 

"-and make sure to tell the others. Zara, Hafiz, Hussein, Rayaan."

The urchin nods, a little girl with cunning eyes and quick hands, and scampers off with the money in her fist.

Raina has asked the other networks she knows to keep a eye out for this sort of thing. With tensions the way they are, a desecration of such a divine Hindu deity is sure to be the gasoline on the flame. 

She cuts a look at Carter, sitting down next to him. They've figured it's safe enough to be out in public if she's posing as his chosen escort - Usmaan won't raise many eyebrows at the dumb American.

"What luck on your end?" 

He scowls. Raina's operations keep on being the kind of thing that have no business working as well as they, actually, do. He never would have thought having little beggar-children minions would work in real life, but apparently people really don't think of kids as people and really will tell them things they wouldn't tell grown-ups. 

It has nothing to do with the fact that his own investigations have hit a dead end. 

His little trick with Usmaan opened up whole new vistas for them, which Raina promptly took advantage of, but now something's spooked the man. The last time Carter saw him, he barely spoke, just sat in a mess of broken syringes and pill-packets clutching his bottle and mumbling about some kind of fever-dream crap. 

And his idiot-American gambit worked well to get him in, but now nobody takes him seriously. Again. 

...

...And honestly those pictures give him the fucking creeps. Blasphemy ain't a shock to him - it's a free country, he'd say, except it isn't - but there's something fucking wrong about those pictures. It shouldn't be a surprise, gangs of toughs aren't the most tolerant guys around, but it just doesn't feel right. 

"Not much," he grinds out. "Usmaan's acting weird. Drowning his demons every night, up like a jack-in-the-box the next day, freaks out and goes medieval if you even remind him Hindus exist. Something's got to him. Apart from that, fuck knows. They're having some pretty nasty... supply problems, though." Their plan to stop the trafficking isn't a complete success, but they have at least slowed it down.

She slides a grin at him, like the starting flame of a bonfire. "What a shame. Business is sure to be bad."

She gets to thinking, rapping long nails against her coffee cup. "It seems that they could use a boost to business right now, doesn't it? What if we arranged a meal with some potential suppliers and investors? Get ourselves into the web and make it into his home. We can disappear for an hour or two to find some stuff." 

He stares. "You're saying... we can't beat the bad guys, so we become the bad guys?"

What a thought. 

He's still staring at her. 

"If you were anyone else I'd say you were crazy. But... God damn, that might actually work. We're gonna need to make it believable..."

She takes a sip, staring at him over the top of her cup with mischief in her eyes. "It gets you taken seriously and gets you much deeper in. It also gives us a chance to plant a few more of our own people in the mix so we can have some backup. I feel like it's the best way forward. Hospitality and shows of faith go very far here."

He nods. She'd know. "Yeah, makes sense. How d'you wanna play this? I'm guessing by 'people' you don't mean more kids - unless you do?" He's honestly not sure at this point. "And then - makes sense for you to take the lead on making them feel at home, but it means we'll need to have our story straight. Not too late to change tack from the escort story. Unless you like it that way." He winks. 

"I rather think you like it that way, Carter," she returns coolly. She's noticed, then. The appreciative way his eyes dip to her all the time. Perhaps might even have returned the sentiment, had it not been this life.

She shakes her at his suggestions. "No children. I actually don't really like to employ them, but... It's a tough life on the streets here. They're useful, and I don't have enough money to take them in, but I have enough money to make sure they eat.

'We'll suggest it to Usmaan. Or rather, I'll plant the idea of a house visit, and you'll plant the idea of him meeting investors, and we hope he comes up with the real plan on his own. Because we need to understand what's happening with him if we want to start unravelling this."

He just shrugs easily. Maybe it's doomed and maybe it's not, but he's not a gloomy kind of guy and he never believed in all the destiny bullshit. "It has its perks. We can just pretend you're a working girl the dumb Yankee started falling for. And yeah, at this point if I bring him the right gear he'll agree to anything, but we're going to have to do the actual heavy lifting here. Don't suppose you got any more leads? Anyone else big we should invite?"

A slow smile spreads across her face. "Leave it with me."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Shoaib..." she wheedles, leaning forward in the chair. "You know you want to see what all the fuss is about this gora." 

She gives him the kind of cheeky, charming smile she is very well-known for to those who love her. 

He gives her a flat look. 

She's very, very good at them, but her charms don't quite work on him. 

Mostly. 

He takes a deep breath. 

She's not wrong that he's curious, but that's a very small consideration in the balance of things. 

He risks exposure, as always, which would be deeply inconvenient; he's confident, perhaps nineteen parts in twenty, that he can escape the immediate consequences; less confident that he can ever rebuild his position to something like this; only barely mostly confident that he can recover within five years, if he's compromised. 

He stands to gain... all the kinds of intangible knowledge one only gets from personal acquaintance, progress in the plan, progress in Khan learning to work with others, possible American assets. 

It's not an easy call. You do take small risks seriously if you want to stay in this job long. But by the same token, you can't never take them. 

"...Explain this plan to me in detail. Slowly."

It's as good as a capitulation. 

Raina explains. It's a very good plan, with almost flawless coverage of all the backdoors Usmaan's gang might take if things go south - which they won't, because she's this good only because Shoaib taught her everything she knows, which means he probably knows about double. 

It's an excellent in. The information they have comes from children, yes, but they're more reliable than they are accurate. All Shoaib has to do is drink a little and bring a few thugs with him. 

Plus. She wants her Baba superior to play with her in the field.

Carter is collecting more investors and they want the balance to be 90% real investors and 10% plants. Raina's working on finding more dirty leads. Her righteous crusade (which she has earned an earful for) actually proves useful in creating a profit vacuum they can fill.

She sits back at last, crossing her legs. "Well?" 

...

...

Oh, look how they grow up. 

She's actually learned a lot about how and when to pull things like this and not die. 

He makes a few suggestions, the odd correction. Mentally shortlists agents to bring on board, stories to tell them. 

And he does want to see this American and work out just what the hell is the problem Khan has with him. 

Time to roll the dice. 

"I'm in."

She does not squeal, but she uncrosses her legs and flicks open her dossier, which is basically the equivalent in their line of work. 

"I'll pick out a suit for you. Western, not traditional. And bring a date - Amira, perhaps?" she asks innocently. They have so much history, and she's tough as nails... 

Oh, dear. 

"Don't push it, Khan," he says mildly, already planning how on earth he's going to ask her. 

She's stood up and halfway out the door when she calls back, "She hates flowers!" before he can toss her out by the scruff of her neck.

Usmaan's place can sparkle when he wants it to. 

He must have got someone in to clean and decorate it - why the man doesn't just have a second apartment he doesn't know - because it's warm and jasmine-scented and slightly smoky and full of wine and laughter and pliant girls in less than underwear. 

It makes his skin crawl. 

Their actual host had glazed eyes when they got here and is now sprawled in a stupor on a couch, so it falls to him and his 'escort'. 

He's more than well-trained enough not to blink when Raina's mysterious commanding officer shows up, with a woman on his arm who might be polite and painted and smiling but nonetheless looks like she could gut him and not lose a wink of sleep, and to act the part of the American drunkard with too much money and not enough sense. 

There's a lot of dirty money here. 

"Wanna make sure everybody's got a drink, toots?" Only Raina will see the faint twinkle in his eye. 

She gives him a crafted smile, shy and hesitant but coquettish and alluring, and leans in to whisper, "I'll make you pay for every Americanism and insult later, just so you're aware."

She flicks her tongue against the soft, warm skin under his ear, trying her best not to breathe in his scent as if it's morphine - woodsmoke, chestnuts, warm whiskey, honey. 

His heart stutters in his chest. Well, this is a very tense and high-stakes environment. So that makes sense. 

He does breathe her in. Cardamom and cinnamon and something dark and rich... 

His breath is warm on her cheek, replies in her mother tongue. "Is that a promise, dollface?" It sounds wrong as a calque, which is the point. 

She can feel him smirk. 

"It's a prophecy, sweet one," she murmurs back, and sashays away to get drinks. The tops of her shoulders and chest are bared for the men to follow with their eyes, and they linger on her even after she passes to settle on the sheer drop in the back which reaches her hips.

Good. They want them all sated and distracted when they're talking business. She sees a few other agents and only interacts with about two of them, trusting Shoaib to have briefed them on everything. 

It should be a very simple night. It shouldn't go wrong, not really. Plus, there's alcohol and a weapons-at-the-door policy, but that is mostly for appearances. It shouldn't go wrong. 

She wanders particularly over to Usmaan, the sheer red fabric whispering over her skin as she slides him a drink. 

"We haven't met in too long, Sahib. Are you displeased with me?" Her voice is coy and teasing, the courtesan who has grown confident in her position on the arm of a man. 

His eyes are bloodshot, his voice watery. 

"How could I be," he manages, seizing his drink with hands that absolutely do not tremble. "You know how to be obedient. What to do, and not to do." His eyes slide over her, and it's like a physical touch, sticky and cloying. He chuckles, and it sounds wrong. "If only I were not so busy with my clients. I am in- in demand. I would have more time for you." He drinks noisily. "You are- right." He paws at her, in a way unlike him, almost clumsy. "Such a good little Muslim girl." He's staring at her... almost desperately. 

"You flatter me, Sahib," she titters, looking down, the picture of modesty. Of course, it doesn't quite work as well when her tits are in his face but they can blame that on Carter.

"I know that I owe my loyalty and livelihood to you. I am so grateful for the opportunities you have given us. I believe Mr Agan..." she flicks a glance at the American, "Wishes to create some more for you." 

"Does he now?" Suddenly his voice is bright, too bright, and brittle. "Is that what he talks about when you dance for him? More of the same, is it?" That last question is a little too sharp. He desperately, desperately, desperately wants it to be something new. 

"I-I don't know, Sahib," she admits, looking away. "He seems to enjoy your company, I think, but this gora has never seen our hospitality before, and you command respect wherever you go."

She leans in, wide-eyed and eager to please. "Would you like me to convince him for you?" 

"Right. Right. Of course, little one. Don't be afraid." His eyes are distant, unfocussed. "It's never wise to show fear." He takes another swig, fingertips pressed white against the glass. "Go and ask him."

She is so eager to get away that she forgets to even leave him with a look or a kiss. It's okay, they can play it off.

She rejoins Carter's conversation with Shoaib, trembling slightly, and slips his arm around her. It's comforting and nice, and she's not ashamed of it right now.

There is something very fucking wrong with Usmaan.

"So how are you liking our city, sir?" he asks politely. His eyes drift over Agent Khan as though she's a mildly diverting item of furniture. "I'm glad to see you're enjoying the company of your hosts." Only the slightest stress there. He's happy that Khan and Agan aren't on the verge of blows any more. 

...Khan is a little shaken, hiding it almost perfectly. That's unusual for her. If it gets bad he can help cover for her, but... hmm. 

He barely pays attention to Malik, pulling Raina close with a reassuring squeeze. He can feel her shiver. Yeah. He gets it. It's like Usmaan isn't really there any more.

Well, there's one way to take her mind off things. 

"What can I say, man? Good food, great guys," a lazy gesture towards Usmaan, who's staring at him or possibly something a thousand yards behind him, "and yeah, this broad," he pinches her ass, "knows how to treat a man."

She's going to kill him. At least she won't be upset any more. Not really upset. Something feels kinda wrong with the world when she's scared. 

Raina turns her head slowly, like an owl, a painted smile still on her face. 

She's beyond angry now. He's just like the others. What a fool she is to think he might have been different. 

"Yes, Mr Agan," she says sweetly, her grip on his arm turning claw-like. "Actually, I should go and check on them."

Men. Men.

She goes in search for someone more predictable that has closer ties to Usmaan. They need to figure out what the hell is wrong with him. 

...That boy still has all his fingers unbroken. 

Raina must really like him. 

It's not hard to find someone who'll talk, as long as they're in private away from their host and plied with drink and not caring about the decor (Raina). 

Usmaan was completely normal up until his second meeting in the warehouse. Hasn't been the same since. Rumour goes that he wanted answers, and got them. Maybe he got roughed up a little? But it doesn't look it, and he'd be a dangerous enemy to make, and he's a tough man, it shouldn't have hit him that hard. Maybe he's just snapped. People do. 

She'll find someone who was with him that night and side up to them, offering drinks and a coy smile. 

There's always a bodyguard who'll talk. 

Usmaan went back to the warehouse, demanded answers. He's a big man around here (the bodyguard's chest swells proudly), he can do that. 

Said something about wanting to know the truth. (The man's voice drops, and he leans in as he spins his tale.) The whole truth. Threatened to start... 'making enquiries' otherwise.

Anyway, they take him to the back rooms, where it all really happens. Nobody's allowed back there. They wanted him, the bodyguard, to stay behind, but he just cracked his knuckles and they backed off, just like that. Didn't want them getting any funny ideas about Usmaan going missing, see. 

So they go through, and you can hear this very very faint noise, right. Crunch, crunch, crunch. All the time. 

In the end they come to this room all dark and full of smoke, smells like incense. They tell him someone needs to watch out for them, give him a torch, he has his back to the wall, knife in his hand. 

Usmaan goes down some kind of trapdoor, and for a minute nothing happens. And then... there's something weird, right, a sort of loud hum. Smells like charred meat, even with the incense. 

You don't ask Usmaan about it. You just don't. 

He saw something down there. 

(This bodyguard is trying very hard to impress the pretty girl, but he is not actually very good at telling ghost stories.)

Raina smiles and looks impressed and frightened and interested at all the right moments, leaning in so he can get an excellent view of her chest and smell her perfume (orange blossom and sandalwood tonight - it's silly to have a signature scent in the field). She titters about how brave he is to be so loyal to Usmaan, how clever Usmaan is for figuring out something was going on. She wonders aloud what it might have been that tipped him off. 

Oh, that's easy. Usmaan moves a lot of gear, but he's always got his eyes open, he noticed all the weird shit on his hands all of a sudden. So something's changed. He knows they're having a good year, a really good year, stands to reason it's connected. Trouble is there's no free lunch and if these boys have their fingers in something that's going to burn them, he wants to know, so he can make arrangements.

(He sounds rather like he's repeating this from memory).

Raina sighs plaintively, playing idly with the guard's collar, letting her fingertips graze skin. 

She mentions off-handedly that the stupid American man - the one who drags her everywhere like a rag doll and keeps throwing expensive gifts at her, like this dress - he is so eager to get in on the business. And he won't stop talking about how he knows something is amiss and he keeps pestering her about it, so she better have something good to tell him when he gets back.

She's ever so bored around that gora, all he does is paw at her and put her in all this stuff. Maybe if she can tell him something good, he'll leave her alone for a few days. 

She blinks prettily up at the guard. 

Yeah this guard does not want to piss off the weird American who, you see, is still alive so probably not as dumb as he looks or at least very good at killing the other guy first. 

He's not a clever man, but he's made it this far by not making dangerous enemies.

He doesn't say that, obviously, the other guys would laugh at him. 

Listen. Something is amiss. The American would be smart to keep out of it. 

The Canal St. boys are looking for something. Usmaan says there's a pattern to the places they're hitting - rich families, old ones, archives, libraries, stuff from before the partition, Hindus, anyone with roots going back a long way. 

They're looking for something. 

Maybe they showed Usmaan exactly what it was. 

She shivers audibly, sidling a little closer. That kind of stuff seems so strange; she's glad Usmaan didn't spend too long being involved. She'll tell the American and maybe that will keep him happy for a few days. 

Otherwise... He should drop by the brothel in his spare time. She makes that much clear in veiled terms before she moves away. 

Ya Allah, there's something very black in the daal here. The Hindus are known for their cults but even the most ambitious guru wouldn't dare desecrate a true deity, most of the existing cults are centred around religious leaders.

Well, to be perfectly honest, so are the Muslim ones. 

This is going to take more digging, but at least they have somewhere to start. 

He does not feel good about this. 

Raina still seems off, and that makes everything feel wrong. He's kind of worried whatever's got to Usmaan has hit her too. 

He's very worried, actually. 

Because it would be terrible for the Agency if something drove their main contact here crazy, of course. 

He shoots a worried glance in her direction. 

She is. Ignoring him? Won't catch his eye, won't linger more than two metres close to him, refuses to talk to him. Otherwise, she seems perfect. Like porcelain just before the pressure point of shattering.

If he wants her attention, he's going to have to confront her for it. She's enjoying the protection that sitting next to Usmaan and his friends offers her; one of them pulls her into his lap. 

Oooookay that is very not good and he's been through anti-interrogation training (boring, he's tough and doesn't feel pain much and is also incredibly hard to restrain) so he's probably better placed for whatever horrifying secret bad juju Usmaan is talking about? 

Right, time for the classic strategy. 

He swaggers up to Usmaan, thrusts another drink into his hands, loudly addresses the entire group about something dumb. Stupid big loud American. 

He doesn't need to threaten the guy holding Raina, she can handle herself. The fact that he could cheerfully break every bone in the man's torso with one blow is just for him to think about. He'll get the message. 

All eyes move to him.

Well done, Agan. You've got everyone's attention. And while they're all looking at him, Raina glances coolly at him and raises a brow.

It's so unbothered it's almost scathing. 

Ah, that's a relief, she's back to normal. 

He's going to get them talking about business. He's feeling reckless, for some reason. Raina's here, her creepy knows-everything-you-hope-he-doesn't boss is here, it can't go that badly wrong if he pushes Usmaan a little further. 

The man Raina is sitting on likes this turn of events. He's not really here for business, sweetheart, he's comfortable. 

He's also very handsy. 

He's not going to talk about it. He's not going to talk about business, either. He's going to mumble something horrible about infidels and say it'll serve them right when they all die in agony.

God, what the fuck has happened to Usmaan? Even as she's entertaining Mr Handsy she's mulling over his words. They need to get inside his private rooms and figure this out.

The easiest way to do that would be to go with Carter. Fantastic. 

She's not sure he'll catch her drift but she catches his eye and glances to the hallway that leads onwards into the house. 

He gives her a lazy wink and a dumb American grin. All right, she's got something, and she seems a little better, that's good.

They should work out some kind of code, come to think of it. 

He staggers to his feet. "All right, sweetie-pie, no need to throw yourself, daddy's coming. Still got a minute for a... private dance before dinner, right guys?" 

There's laughter, even a few whoops. There's a knack to making guys like that like you. Just like high school, except with more murderers.

He scoops Raina up like a kitten, gives the guy she was sitting on a friendly punch on the shoulder that costs him all the feeling in his arm, and they're out of the room in a moment.

He sets Raina down immediately. "Sitch report, Agent Dollface?"

...

He's not totally blind. 

"What's wrong?"

"One of the guards said there's a pattern to what they're hitting these days. Old Hindu houses from before the partition, and all these old statues and paintings. We need to figure out exactly what it is they're hiding, and I want to get into Usmaan's study."

Her voice is sharp and cold, like the clicking of her heels on the stone of the floors. 

He frowns. There's an uneasy sense to him, a memory on the tip of his tongue. "Fifty-fifty he's left it unlocked, these days. If not - I can give you cover to spring the lock." She's obviously going to know how. "You know best here, if you think it's worth the risk we can go now."

He paused for a second. "Is something bothering you?"

There's a falter in her steps. 

Hmm. He seems to actually care, but it would be beyond embarrassing to try and explain it. 'The way you kept your cover in front of the other men made me feel like who I was supposed to be playing'.

"I'll need two minutes. Maybe three, if he decides for one of the more modern models." 

Oh shit. Fuck it, he knew she couldn't really be the ice-cold super-ace perfect agent she seemed to be. This actually is a lady who is scared. 

He keeps absolutely every trace of that sentiment off his face with an effort of will because she has pointy knees and a keen knowledge of anatomical weaknesses.

"Ma'am - Raina, I'm sorry. I shoulda made sure that was OK in advance, not just assumed. That's on me. Sorry." He coughs. "We can come up with something to stop the other guys pulling that shit too, if you like. We got time, I tipped the butler guy." He kind of gets why it's worse coming from him, actually. 

Something softens. "You kept your cover. It was the best idea for the mission. And I really don't think we could come with a way it would be inappropriate for them to... Continue." 

He smirks. "I dunno, you know how weird and possessive us Americans can be. I'm very happy with them underestimating me. I would have to keep calling you dollface, though. I'm no expert in Urdu, but it sounds pretty good, right?" The term 'shit-eating grin' could have been invented for him. 

He'll post himself at the end of the corridor and give her cover to pick the lock. 

"It sounds awful." 

It does actually sound nice. Unfamiliar but somehow poetic. 

She makes short work of it and they're through in no tome. 

Usmaan's study is trashed. There's the body of a records-book, the leather binding cracked down the spine and the pages all torn out. The desk is overturned. It looks like there was a fire in one corner. 

Raina shares a troubled look with Caragon. Is this Usmaan himself, or did he get raided? With the state he's in it could truly be either one.

"See if you can figure out who did this, or why. I'll try for important documents."

She rifles through desk drawers and files, looks for trick drawers or false walls or that sort of thing. And a safe, obviously. They're looking for a safe. 

"Usmaan did. That's his lighter. Also, he's gone crazy."

There are the twisted remains of a safe among the ashes. 

Inside there are a scorched sheaf of grainy photographs of that profaned idol of something like the god Shiva. Lists of addresses. Weird fragments of unholy texts: 

...and the profaned godhead that could lay armies waste was stricken from its Altar of Sin whose presence could flay the soul of a man and which bestowed the power of [here the text is burned through] and the godhead that was made Matter was taken and borne away and sold for common silver and has passed from the remembrance of men and languishes in some noble hall impotent until such time as it shall be recovered by one who possesses the Blasphemous Altar...

"The Blasphemous Altar? Usmaan was talking about the infidels. The Godhead that was made matter... Does any of this mean anything to you?"

She leafs through the pages, showing them to Carter, a furrow in her brow. 

None of this is making any sense.

There's not much time to contemplate it actually, because she can hear steps coming down the hallway. They have thirty seconds, maybe less. 

"Nah, that's fucking creepy as shit. I kinda thought you'd know - sounds like some kinda cult thing?"

He's interrupted by the footsteps breaking into a dead run. Five seconds now, maybe. 

The papers go behind the desk where they can't be seen from the doorway; she hops up on the desk and grabs Carter, pulling him close and kissing him square on the mouth just as the door opens. 

Oh, God, this is such a huge mistake. Their cover is about to get blown and all she can do is think about how warm and sweet his mouth tastes on hers. 

Oh. 

His arms come around to hold her close - she's so light, doll-like, muscles tense with secret power like a live wire - and he kisses her properly, cover be damned, the way she deserves to be kissed. Fierce, but gentle. Hungry. 

He bursts in to his private office, fumbling for his gun-

The American. And some whore. Fucking in the ashes of everything he ever knew. 

He lets go of the gun carefully. 

And then he starts to laugh. 

Once he starts, he doesn't stop. 

Her surprise is not feigned, and neither is the edge of fear in her voice as she asks, "Sahib? I-I am sorry, we should not be here, I tried to tell him-" 

hA haHaHAhahAHAhHAh hahahahaha

She looks to Carter. Her hands are still gripping his arms like a lifeline, like he's all she needs to hold onto in this world, and he can feel her heartbeat pick up as she starts to prepare for a fight. 

She's unsure; she wants his input on this, like they're actually a team. 

Well, fuck.

He offers her a small smile. Usmaan clearly isn't listening, so he risks a low murmur in a language the man doesn't speak well - "Maybe we should take the opportunity?"

They could approach Usmaan like this, see what they can get out of him here. 

It's too high a risk. He might remember - might know that something is amiss and realise they've been playing him, might blow their whole cover. 

Maybe it's the kiss. Maybe it's the surprise of being caught; maybe it's Usmaan himself, maybe she's spending far too much time with Carter these days. 

It doesn't seem such a bad idea. He's here and he's crazy enough that he probably won't be believed anyway. It's not like they're making any progress without, this place has been burned down.

She shares a look with Carter. It's probably best for her to approach first. 

"Sahib? What's so funny, Sahib?" 

"Ha." He pulls himself together, grins hazily up at her. "It's you! And him! And me! All of us! All of us here, as if it still- as if- ha! The American and the whore fucking," he spits the word, "in the ashes! It was true. It was all real. I saw myself burn the pages. I saw you defile the ash. And it came true! It's all true! The Old God stirs as we fumble at Heaven- His city here beneath our troglodytic huts- the catacombs they sealed, not well enough! Where did I think that warehouse went? Hmm? Hahahahaha!"

"With the statues? And the old paintings? Does the Old God seem to take Shiva's form?" she coaxes, approaching with a honeyed voice. 

More wild laughter. "No no no, the one the," he spits a slur so hard Raina can feel the flecks of spittle on her cheek, "the one they call Shiva has his form, for He is older far, ancient before any man touched a pen, even to draw His true form is to open the threshold, girl! And of us? Of the Prophet? No, girl, Allah had no hand in the making of that place."

She's not a historian (well. she was. it's a long story.) but she's not quite heard of gods that predate the Hindu pantheon, even before the British and Mughals altered them. This is very, very old religion.

How have they ended up dealing with this sort of thing?

"What did they show you down there Usmaan?" 

He doesn't reply. But in the ash, with a finger, he sketches a shape, oblong but of a curiously disquieting proportion. Like a great table, with something like a pedestal, and incense-sticks. "What they found. What they are doing. They bring their machines and their idiot sages in their white coats and they scratch at the seals of Gehenna."

"How far up does this go? Your suppliers? Your superiors? Who else is involved, Sahib?" 

He blinks and glances up at her quizzically. There's the beginnings of a frown on his face-

He chuckles warmly, plops himself down on the floor, and scoops Raina up onto his knee with one hand. Pats her on the head. "Hey, no need to psychoanalyze the man, Dr Cutiepie. The man needs a lil brandy, not a shrink with tits, am I right?" He gives Usmaan a big friendly grin. 

Serving-girls don't talk like that - that's the first time he's seen Raina really slip up. God Almighty, she must be rattled. 

Probably Usmaan's just gone a bit too hard on some of the sketchy shit he gets imported, but it is creepy. 

He laughs bitterly. "What does it matter? Yes, suppliers, superiors, yes, all the way to the top. He is the top. It goes all the way. The Soviets think to learn things- think their star-lore will help them-" he breaks down laughing again.

By Allah, this seems to run deep. He's so unnerving and she hates that Carter just had to rescue her - she's the talker, diplomacy is her thing, she's like a wraith with words only quicker, and she stiffens when he touches her again, all that open pliancy from their kiss gone. 

Gods, that kiss. She's never kissed a man before, not to mean it, and she's not sure this one counts (she's telling herself it doesn't) but it has set her head awry and she needs to fucking focus.

It's hard when Carter is so warm and smells so good and she kind of wants him to lift her back up onto that desk and finish what they started- Khan. Khan. Focus. 

"What happened to this room, Sahib? Shall we send someone to clean it up?" 

"N̴O̷," he explodes suddenly, voice cracking. "No- leave, leave, get out, GET OUT-" 

He's pushing them out the door, locking himself in behind them. 

"Okay, okay, we're leaving. We're leaving, it's alright."

She tries her best to placate him - they've pushed a little too far but this has been productive. 

Raina turns to Carter outside the closed door, as long as there's no one around, and raises an eyebrow. "He's off the rails." 

His shoulders shift and he stands up straight and he switches from dumb drunk Yankee to Agent Agan. "Big time. So leads are that fucking warehouse again, something under the city, and anything to do with the old Hindu families - anything ring any bells? You looked like you might be thinking something." 

He's not actually going to tease her for getting rattled, come to think of it. He'd probably be kinda upset if there were a crazy guy talking shit about Jesus. 

...

And fuck him it is creepy. 

Allah give her strength. It's taking everything in her not to grab him by the shoulders and pull him in again. She must be very, very stressed. 

"His guard told me they're hitting old Hindu houses. And he mentioned earlier that I was a good Muslim girl, whatever that means." She says it with enough derision that it nukes the irony.

Their work here is done, mostly. It's clear that trying to maintain a cover with Usmaan is no longer useful to their cause. However, his being incapacitated starts to raise a power vacuum... 

She looks at Carter. "How do you feel about being the next crime lord in charge of this shit hole?" 

...

Oh he knows where this is going.

"...So. You think there is something to this, then, he's not just snapped. And you think I can step into his shoes and that's how we work out what's really going on?" He looks at Raina. "You realise long-term this whole thing collapses, right? We ain't gonna have that long."

He grins. 

"I think I like it."

"It will be enough time to get what we need. A few months, maybe. It's dangerous but snooping around is getting us nowhere." There's a devilish gleam in her eyes; it makes them glint mahagony brown in this low light.

"We just need to discredit him and let the others find him. You'll step in since you know how the business works and you're already doing all the heavy moving," she plans, tapping her nails on the side table. There's a slight scrunch in her brow as she talks it all through, her mind is a million miles away.

Such a cunning mind under such a sweet face.

Raina narrows those eyes on him. "Then we sit and wait." 

He scratches his chin. "Yeah. Usmaan's a vicious bastard but he thinks he's smarter than I am. The way we play it, I'll step in when they find him, say I'll just stay with him for a while to help out, ya know. Won't be hard to make sure he stays down-" Usmaan punctuates this point by beginning to beat his head rhythmically against the door. "Until someone gives me a lead."

He looks sideways at her. 

A small smile plays about his face. 

"So you're gonna, what, put your feet up until I get somewhere?"

He knows she won't be able to stand it. He has a plan. 

Her smile is slow and sly, and she trails a finger along his forearm. "I think it's high time I get to watch you do some heavy lifting."

It sounds like hell, but at least she'll be able to supervise him. 

Shoaib is either going to think this is the best or worst idea ever. 

He smirks. "Trouble is, it's gonna get suspicious if you show up any time things get interesting and then vanish like smoke. How'd you like to be the kingpin's, uh," he falters for the right word for a moment, this is his, like, sixth language, "concubine?"

She cocks her head at him, and she's definitely drunk or in shock or high from the adrenaline but her hand wraps around his wrist and pulls him in, slowly, her gaze locked on his. Her hands skate up the plane of his chest, solid and strong. 

"Tell me, Carter, how much does this amuse you?" 

His breath catches. Her long fingers are surprisingly strong where they hold him, and the warmth radiates from her. 

"Enormously," he breathes. "I'm still waiting for you to make me pay. Dollface."

She pulls a face - it doesn't translate very well to French, either. She has a suspicion that it would be quite charming in his American accent, though. 

"Oh, I'm still planning on it, darling." She draws close, angling her head just so, blinking big eyes up at him, close enough that if he swayed forward she could touch his lips with hers again.

It reminds them both of that kiss in the study, hungry, yearning, how her hands dug into his skin and how she leaned into him as if she might share his very body. 

"But first, I want you to tell me..." Her lips ghost to his ear. "What the hell happened to make you so strong." 

-remember the rules-

-green and silver steel and the cutting-

-the burning-

-smile-

He convulses on the spot, it's like being plunged into a frozen lake. 

He backs away sharply, a glint in his eyes. 

"That's classified." He snaps the words out, but in his eyes there is panic, plain and obvious to see - he's shivering, clutching at himself-

Raina stares at him incredulously. "Everything we do is classified. You've been in my home and I don't know a single fucking thing about you. How the hell do you expect me to let you touch me around other people?"

Ah. 

It makes sense, now. All the times she's been the whore of Babylon, she was the one approaching him. Every time he's done something to keep with the cover, something she hadn't initiated, she's shied away. 

She's never liked men who were strong. And Carter seems to be the strongest of them all. 

He stares at her, trying really hard to stop trembling by an effort of will. (An ordinary man's bones would crack under the strain.)

"Uh, to keep our cover? Your whole vixen thing wasn't my idea, you know - wanna tell me the worst thing that ever happened to you?" He hadn't meant to say that. 

Her fire snuffs out in an instant and her voice is like stone when she says, "You truly do not wish to know."

But she can hardly demand honesty from him while withholding information herself, can she. It's unfair, she can see it even through her hurt and embarrassment and anger.

"A white man." 

He stares at her for a second. Not him, surely, but- "...Right."

He drags a hand down his face. 

"...I'm sorry. It's not- I don't talk about it much. Truth is I don't totally know myself. I kinda get fragments. There was- there was this woman. Scientist. German refugee or some shit, dad gave her a job. She was... she was weird. Creepy. You know sometimes you meet someone and it's like some part of you just- yeah." He swallows. "She had these theories, honestly I didn't get half of it, but I know it was weird shit. I'm... honestly I'm not that sure why it was me she ended up testing it out on, you'da thought- anyway. Don't know if it was dad's idea or what. But it wasn't great. I remember bits of it sometimes. It..."

His voice finally fails him. 

remember the rules-

The indignance in her stance falters, and the adorable furrow in her brow is back. "That. That sounds awful, Carter - your father just gave you up like that?"

She's starting to hate the sound of this guy. 

He shrugs awkwardly. "I don't actually know. He kinda went quiet, disappeared for a couple days before it happened. Don't know why. He doesn't... doesn't really talk about it. You don't mention it in front of him or he just... I don't know, it's weird, it's like he shuts down."

He gives her a tiny painful smile. 

"Your turn?"

Raina's eyes shutter, but the effort it takes her to push through them is monumental. She swallows a huge lump in her throat, and her voice sounds shaky. "Not here. Not now. I will, I promise, just not somewhere like this."

Not somewhere that the violence she's seen screams at her and terrifies her. The state of his room was like an animal had trampled through it, frenzied and rabid. It still sends a shiver through her.

She glances back at the door. "Are you ready to put this into motion?" 

He nods, uncertainly. 

Something about the woman just - leaves him off-balance, that's it. 

He manages the ghost of a smirk. "Yeah. Let's go."

It's depressingly easy to do, in the end. Usmaan isn't really there any more, behind those staring eyes. 

He's sprawled on the couch now, his hand lazily tangled in Raina's hair, talking shit. "Yeah, man, he needs to take it easy for a while. Working himself too hard. I'll keep an eye on him, keep everything running smoothly, not a problem." He gestures expansively with his whisky. 

He waits until the party has dispersed.

His, er, date is very discreetly putting together her own report on what the hell is going on here. He'd be a fool to trust her or Khan completely, but it's all about defence-in-depth, they probably won't both betray him in the same way at the same time. 

"So," he says thoughtfully, eyes on Agan.

From what he can tell, the boy is... troubled. He feels uncertain around Khan but is trying very hard to hide it. And... it's hard to be this specific, but he gets the feeling there's something else bothering him, not just whatever it is that has Khan so rattled. "This is sudden."

His eyes drift to Agent Khan. 

Oh, Shoaib has her number, alright. It's a subtle reprimand and a tease all at the same time, and she loves and hates how he can do that all with a few words. She still has so much to learn from him.

She looks up at Carter and shrugs. Their plan is fucking crazy but she feels like it will work. 

"No better way to follow this than from the inside. We saw an opportunity and we took it." 

"Sir. I acknowledge the unconventional nature of the operation here, but this whole mission has been all about unexpected developments - there's something going on here, the Soviets are tied up in it, we gotta act."

A tiny, tiny ghost of a smile at Khan. 

...The boy hasn't actually taken his hand out of her hair. People very often do have trouble completely coming out of character but-

-no, not her, surely. Agent Khan doesn't have such weaknesses - does she?

...The thing is, he isn't wholly sure it would be a bad thing if she did. In espionage there are many more claims of expertise, than expertise in truth; he at least knows enough to know how much he does not know. He really cannot say if Khan being more whole again as a person would be bad or good for her ability to do her job. 

As long as she doesn't lose sight of what is important.

"Well. I have no corrections to offer you then, Agent Khan, Agent Agan. But I will expect a full debrief. At the earliest opportunity."

Raina nods curtly. "Understood, sir," she says, her eyes blinking slowly. They feel heavy with sleep, and she's too tired and shaken to stop Carter from what he's doing. 

And it feels nice.

They lounge for a few more moments after Shoaib says his goodbye (with a very knowing look at Raina that she's unable to decipher) until she finally hails herself off the chaise, adjusting the fabric of her dress around her. She stumbles, unsteady, adrenaline leaving her in a rush and leaving behind bone-tiredness. 

He rolls easily to his feet, a little awkward now that everything is silent. "This place is pretty big," he says, to fill the void. "It's not gonna be a problem, but I've swept the place for bugs and things, pretty sure it's clean. If you wanna stay. Usmaan's not coming out of his study, I don't think, and there's some of the suites with locks on 'em."

She shakes her head hurriedly, immediately. "There's no fucking way I'm staying here. Not ever."

The fearful look she casts at the study tells him enough. "I'm going home. We can meet up and discuss this all tomorrow. Shoaib is going to want an airtight report on everything."

She glances at him, waiting. 

He looks back at her. 

Now that there's quiet again - now that the rush has died down - the reality of this night's work, and what they've agreed to do, sinks into him. 

He drifts closer to her without even realising. 

Her eyes shine so bright, like this - he resists the urge to cup her face in his hands -

For a long moment he says nothing. 

Her eyes flicker to his, down, back to his, flurried with indecision. 

She's done far too much tonight that she shouldn't have. 

"Are we ready for this?" 

"For what?" he breathes.

"This shit show we're getting into. There's no going back now, it's too late."

She inches closer, her breaths coming shorter, her chest rising and falling with them.

"It's... It might be too much to handle. What if we find out it's all for nothing in the end?" Raina murmurs. 

She has to tilt her head up to look him in the eyes now. She's so close. 

He wets his lips.

"What if we find out it's not?"

Raina's heart teeters, skipping a beat at the scent of him, rich and spicy and weathered after a night of partying and schmoozing. 

She's on the very end of a cliff, balanced on the edge of a knife, staring into a yawning abyss. It has very pretty blue eyes, and a rakish smirk, and an annoying accent over honey-smooth words. 

What if it's not?

It's only been a few weeks, but she trusts him. So immediately that it scares her. She's always had to keep her emotions tightly bound to her but he has a way of riling them like she's never experienced before, and it makes her feel alive. Like a wildfire of a girl, spitting and dancing and crackling and burning.

Her hand reaches up, a dove-like thing, to brush a lock of hair away from his brow. It sparks an insatiable hunger in her gut that yearns for more, for him, for everything. 

"We burn with it." 

He looks down at her, acutely conscious of the place where her hand touches his skin. He smiles a little bit, more softly than he usually does. It's easier now. 

He really doesn't like it when she looks scared. It makes it feel like there's something somehow wrong with the world. 

"I think," he murmurs quietly, his eyes drifting down to her lips, "we're gonna be fine."

She drops her hand slowly, breath fluttering past her lips. It hangs again at her side, resisting the magnetic pull to where it should be. 

Raina looks up at him, beyond words for the moment.

It's his move. She won't stop him. 

Too fast for her to see, he catches it, pulls her an inch closer - 

- wraps his other arm around her back, as though to lift her closer - 

- and pulls her in and kisses her. 

It's soft, and warm, and sparks that hunger in her, one that pushes her to the tips of her toes, that makes her press harder into him, dig her nails into his arms, grab the back of his neck and pull him closer.

Oh, god, gods, Allah and Jesus, this is such a bad idea, this is-

- it's still not close enough, she wants more, she wants it all, she wants to feel his hands hot on her bare skin, wants to hear him say her name -

- a groan tips out of her mouth and she dives deeper - 

He groans into the kiss and plucks her off the ground by her hips, holding her up with one arm as he tangles the fingers of his other hand in her hair, deepening the kiss - her legs wrap around him - he can drive her up against the wall and kiss her there -

Her back hits the wall and it slams her into her senses. She drops abruptly, landing delicately and pushing him away. Her breaths are irregular, and she won't look at him, but her cheeks are flaming. 

Oh, gods. Shoaib is somewhere winning a bet and also writing her death certificate, she just knows it.

She is. An idiot. A repressed, fanatic, idiot who has climbed the first handsome man she's seen like a tree. 

Silently, she pads over to the couch, retrieves her heeled sandals, and exits the house without a word. 

You know what, no, actually. 

He lopes after her. 

"Raina. What's wrong?"

Raina shakes her head, fights a shiver at the cold and hearing her name on his lips. "Don't. We shouldn't. Besides how many rules and policies we're breaking - it's just a terrible idea. A mistake!"

She's reaching, and she throws her hands into the air. It is so much easier to convince herself she's just repressed and a little stir-crazy. "We can't. Please let me go home alone." 

He has the gall to laugh, low and deep. "At home I'd say, it's a free country, but - well. When have you ever cared about the rules? I ain't stopping you, y'know. You're a good liar. I figure you know you're lying to yourself now."

She scowls, her steps turning more to stomps. "There are thousands of reasons I do not want this, and I do not want this to continue. This was a lapse in judgement."

That much, at least, is true. They barely know each other, beyond this sizzling attraction between them. It's probably just because they're young and... virile. 

He shrugs a little bit. It's late and it's been a very, very long day and right now he's not in the mood to be subtle. "Too late to back out now. Might as well make it convincing."

"Convincing enough for the job. That's it. That's all this can be."

Why the hell does it sound so flat when it comes out of her mouth?

She tries again. "This wasnt anything more than that, Carter. Don't be a fool and think otherwise."

There. Good. The hard edge in her voice has returned. 

Maybe it's the sheer shock of everything that's happened, maybe it's Usmaan's dodgy smuggled whisky finally burning through, maybe it's the way the moonlight plays off her skin, but he finds that he will not, cannot, play this game right now. 

"Bull-fucking-shit."

He was there. When you're around Raina you can almost start to believe in her soft slippery upside-down spin on the world, but then you step outside and look into her eyes and it was all just simple all along. She kissed him. She wasn't pretending. Either time.

Fuck it. Fuck this. Fuck all the lies.

"You can keep on running and lying I guess. Maybe all your life, God knows you're good at it. But the real world's gonna catch you up at the end. You wanna spend your whole life never doing anything for real? There's fuckin' teenage virgins lived more life than you, Raina, 'cause they meant it, all of it."

Her laugh is wickedly sharp and stings, because whatever is about to come out of her mouth will slice him open.

"This coming from the boy whose position in the government he owes to his father? The same one that sold him to be a science experiment?" Her laugh is mocking.

"I would much rather tell my own lies than have them told for me. That's all this world is, Carter. One deception for another."

He almost sways under the force of it.

-sharp like broken glass or spiderwebs are sharp-

And it just keeps coming out of his mouth. 

"Yeah. Life ain't fair. Daddy's boy gets the top job, the spooks cut you up and put freaky shit inside you, the Brits kick the shit out your whole country, shit fucking happens, Raina, get used to it. Can't say you guys wouldn't do the same. Go on now, run off and play pretend. 'Sgonna bite you in the pretty little ass sooner or later."

It takes him about three seconds to regret it, as he's storming away, but by then it's too late.

Raina stares after him, flabbergasted, lost for words and a little too tired to be able to come up with something just as cutting, but she knows how to swear like a sailor because her parents moved over from the Punjab. 

She's cursing his mother's pregnancy of him all the way home. 

Something between them turns fiery and electric after that night. They play their parts to perfection in public, and Raina relishes the tension that holds his frame hostage whenever she gets too close, as if he wants to strangle her as much as he wants to lock them both away in a room together.

She sympathises. 

By night, she works the case in archival research, running through mentions of folklore and legends of pre-Hindu communities, looking for blueprints and architectural clues from the city's underbelly. They're staying in Usmaan's house now that Carter is holding court here, and she has a room that is in conveniently close to his. She's not getting much sleep, but neither do alleycats.

If Carter's found something, he hasn't told her. That suits her just fine. She pretends she's not listening every morning when he gets into the shower after his army-enforced exercise regime. 

He's coping. Mostly. He's coping by doing his job, very very hard, pushing himself to find something, anything. But Usmaan isn't the only one who's spooked and he's still struggling to understand all the different bits of his organisation - Usmaan's smarter than he looks, or at least was before whatever the hell he fried his brain with, more important than Carter actually realised. 

He needs to nail down for sure who the hell the guys in the warehouse are, how they're linked to the Russians. He's still not sure how.

So he's also coping by working out harder than he ever really has before. He... knows he's pretty good, but... they told him not to draw attention, but... it's getting harder to think about. 

He's been running, fast, faster than he knew he could. Longer and harder. He can't find punching-bags anywhere that can take it for more than an hour, but he's got some ideas. 

He stays as far away from Khan as he can when he doesn't have to pretend. They've been lucky, there's been a lull the last few days. She seems happy to keep to herself, and he's not going to be the one to break the silence. He's not.

The thing is, there's not very many discreet workout places to be found here, and the abandoned warehouse he's settled into hasn't escaped the notice of a certain wraith. 

She's never there when he is, but there's a day when things are too confusing and he needs to burn off some extra energy and she's there. In loose trousers that are perfect for movement but not so much for stealth, but she's practicing her blade skills anyway and it's too hot to wear anything tighter.

She looks shocked to see him and stands idle, her lithe little daggers drooping. Some of his old punching bags have been refashioned as dummy targets and are bleeding sand from several wounds. Raina doesn't even have the grace to look ashamed, just flicks silky black hair over a shoulder and raises an imperious brow. 

Sprinting here would have been too conspicuous, so he's not even out of breath. His muscles almost twitch with pent-up energy. 

"What the hell are you doing here."

A smirk ghosts over her lips but she resists the urge to wear it. He broke first, obviously.

With a smooth motion she pockets her knives, turns away and settles into a fighting stance. The first two fingers of her hand, reaching out to him, beckon him to join her. 

Seriously?

You know what, fine. Fine. Fuck it. 

He'll go easy on her. Mostly. It'll still be satisfying.

He smirks, cracks his knuckles behind his back.

...Now that he's here he's not actually sure he can hit a girl-

Her leg sweeps him clean off his feet and onto his back in a flash, and her catlike chuckle echoes off the dusty walls. 

She knows he won't use his full ability on her. She wouldn't be able to handle it - she felt how hard he was trying not to bruise her ribs that one time. But it's fun to goad him out of his pride. 

She flips back easily, malleable and fluid, ready for him. Her dark eyes glitter with satisfaction. 

OK, he can hit a girl. 

He rolls to his feet more clumsily than he actually has to.  

If he were actually fighting Raina for real and not taking any chances he'd probably just charge and grab her, there's only so much skill can help you against that. 

But since he's not-

He's going to come forwards with his guard up and try to take her legs out. 

She's expecting it and dances away, twisting sharply to hit his exposed back. She twists and writhes like a snake, keeping him just out of range and relying on her fleet-footed nimbleness to keep her one step ahead of him. 

Raina tuts, and slips through his guard to his other side. "You're not even trying, Agan," she pouts, her voice pitched so sweetly that it's grating. 

His mouth twists. "Don't wanna hurt you too bad, dollface."

And with that he whirls and knocks both of her wrists away so fast his hands blur and shoves and bears her up against the wall with his hand at her throat. 

Raina lets out a sharp cry of surprise that gets stuck in her throat before she can get it all out. Her eyes are wide, pupils blown wide, shifting under his hands, but there's no way she's getting out of his grip. 

Her pulse beats harder under his fingers, speeding frenetically.

There's concrete at her back and the smell of him, the rush of blood to the head, and all of a sudden it's that night again and her legs are wrapped around his waist, her hands digging into his golden hair like she'll find what she's been missing, and his kiss is magnetic and she can't pull away. 

She's thought about that night far, far too many times. When she sees him glower at her over a glass of something in his strong hands, when she catches sight of his bare shoulders after a long day's business. What might have happened if she hadn't stopped them. What she might have done. 

Except she did, obviously, and she walked away, and he wouldn't let her, so she'd said whatever she could to get him to leave her behind. It was better that way. 

His gaze darkens, and his hand tightens a little around her throat - tighter and tighter, gradually, very, very carefully, but no more escapable than gravity. 

His eyes have a silvery sheen. The dim light from broken windows far overhead glints on the hard lines of his face and the swell of his muscles where they tremble with restrained power. And he towers over her. 

He's big and unsubtle and he acts first and thinks later but he's not, actually, stupid. 

In this moment, he sees her. 

"Where are you going to run now?" 

Why can't he just be stupid? Why does he have to be so smart?

She can't give him this. She can't even give herself this. Allah knows that however bad his father is, her is worse. There's no way this plays out fine. 

She drops his gaze, tapping his arm to tap out. 

Her chest heaves with her breathing. It's not from the sparring. 

He tilts her chin back up with his thumb, and smirks. 

For a long moment, he doesn't let go. 

And then he draws back suddenly, faster than a man his size ought to move, settling back into a casual fighting stance as though nothing happened. 

She steps forward easily, but there's tension in her frame where before it was languid. He's rattled her, more than enough to distract her. 

Raina watches him for a moment, burying the momentary urge to touch him, and leaps. She's trying to bring him down by wrapping her thighs around his neck. 

He's seen her do that before and there is no way it should work in real life - God's sake, she's hitting people crotch-first - but somehow it does.

Thing is, though - it relies on her full bodyweight, at high speed, being too much for the muscles that keep him standing up to support. 

Which...

...if he doesn't try to duck, but leans into it...

It isn't.

The blow still staggers him, but he can whirl around with her momentum and -

He grabs her, wrapping his arms around her thighs to keep her from choking him out with her legs, wobbles- 

Straightens. 

She is, actually, in a weird way, pinned there. 

Stalemate.

Raina huffs, sitting up straight with some difficulty. He's got her weight but it balances precariously between places he can touch, and places he definitely can't. 

"You're just going to block everything and be annoying today, aren't you?" She asks, dropping into a backbend to release down to the ground again. 

He lets her go, after a second. Cracks a grin. "Nah, sweetheart, you know I'm a reasonable guy." He is done, he's not just going to sit here and take this. "You wanna try it again, I'll take the fall for you. Let you get on top if you want."

Raina looks suspiciously at him. He's sure to have an angle or some sarcasm here. And there's a small part of her, the one that feels like a live wire when they touch, that wants to find out what he'll do. 

She takes a running leap and comes at him again, light as air on her feet. 

All right, time to move. 

The thing Raina relies on is that she's - not always faster but nimbler, she has less to move and a shorter distance to move it, she sort of slips through the cracks, uses his own movements against him. Some kind of aikido bullshit, he doesn't know. It's how she can land blows on him. 

So instead-

The thing about big men is that nobody expects them to be quick. 

He gives ground quickly, too quickly, ducking, she's all up-front offence because nobody ever fights carefully against a girl half their size and that's what gets them killed but she's probably not used to-

She overextends just a fraction, and suddenly his whole weight is dragging her down to the ground and her arms are pinned to her sides by his. 

"Told you," he breathes into her ear.

She struggles for a second, just to satisfy her pride, and then rolls to her feet when he lets her go. She prowls around him like an alley cat. 

"That's unnatural. What else did they give you that you're hiding?"

It comes out wrong, too confrontational. What she really wants to ask is 'did they leave you some scars too', and 'can you still want things you wanted before'. She can't. 

His grin does waver slightly, but his voice doesn't falter. "Surprised you didn't see when you stripped me." He's not - the scars are razor-thin, stark in the right light but otherwise invisible. "Which was totally just a medical necessity, of course."

Raina tosses her hair over her shoulder, picks up her knives and her kit, and cuts him a final glance. "Well, I could have let you bleed out in that warehouse, but it would have derailed the operation."

Disengage, Khan. Disengage before things get too involved. 

She can't hide forever. 

The days have trickled by and they've finally got something. 

Massive new weapons shipment. All kinds of stuff, kinda suspicious actually - he can't quite put his finger on it but it's more like someone's trying to throw them off the trail, than like it really is just a lot of different stolen weapons. 

They have an actual target, now. Someone to entertain and make the final deal with and hopefully for God's sake get a clue as to what they're really dealing with here. 

The question is, is Khan gonna work with him here. 

Of course she is. She would never let anything compromise the mission. 

Naturally they've gone back to their icy, simmering silence, but now it's calculated. Khan leans just so when she's with him, flicks her hair over her shoulder, curls her hands, cocks a brow, smirks delightfully in all the wrong ways to rile him up. And it's only when none of the other men are looking. 

She puts in the appearances she needs to, to maintain her cover, but the brothel is arguably the best lead for her to cover while Carter oversees most of the actual work. She regrets being called away, actually, even if it does give her a break.

Still, she does her due diligence. Smacks a file onto his desk after the others have gone home. She just crept out of the shadows like they were embracing her.

"Not a peep out of anyone. It's like they've showed up out of thin air. We might be going in blind." Raina's neck is stiff and her posture angular and tense. She hates not knowing what the hell is going on. 

He gives her a tired smirk. It's taken a lot - even he can't go without sleep forever, and he's trying to stay a step ahead of some of the sharpest bastards in the country - but he does actually have a little something. 

"It's a woman, for starters."

Female, late 20s, Russian, probably Muscovian. Arms dealer noted for her tendency to keep her distance and end up ahead after things go badly sideways, supposedly slept her way to the top and killed the last guy in charge of what's now her operations. It's pretty rare for her to show up to anything in person, so there's something going on here, most probably she's suspicious, she isn't dumb and the American got a lot of money very very fast. 

Supposedly descended from some group of wandering Eastern European witches, won't touch a crucifix, might possibly have had something to do with Nazi relic hunting back in the day even though she would've been, like, 14. 

She knows something. 

They're supposed to be having her to dinner, like, soon. "Got a plan for this one, Khan?"

She leans back against the wall, pondering. After a few moments, she says slowly, "It would be a lot easier if we knew what drives her. But she'll see through your act like glass if you pretend to be the stupid American. She seems to think highly of herself... Perhaps the move is to prove she's right."

A plan starts coming together in her mind. "There's two ways, I think. You could let her know that there definitely is an angle for you and running things helps you get there. Or we make it out like I'm the one who's really making the plays, and you're the puppet. She might take that - it flatters her own rise to power."

He smirks. "The whole concubine act really gets to you, doesn't it, Khan. Y'know what, fine. We'll try it your way. You take the lead on this one, I'll just make a lot of noise."

"Mister Agan," she drawls in the kind of transatlantic accent you might hear on the radio - there might be a Slavic trace to it. "A pleasure to finally put a face to the name." He's big and strong and... tense, in a very interesting way. Hmm. "Will you show me inside?"

He can do "in over his head and compensating" just fine. "This way, ma'am. It's very good of you to come here in person. I think you'll like what I have to offer."

She drinks vodka, shaken over a lot of ice. Expensive, in this part of the world. 

What have they got for her, then?

Raina perches on the desk of the study as they enter, fixing her lipstick in a tiny mirror. "Carter, darling, will you fetch me a martini? Extra wet, you know how I like it," she drawls, giving him a heated look over the mirror.

Her eyeliner is sharp enough to cut glass, and the deep burgundy on her lips gives them exquisite spotlight as the centrepiece of her face.

"How has your journey been, Ms Lebedev? Can I offer you something to nibble while we wait for dinner to finish up?" Her voice has been scrubbed clean of the Urdu accent and remains vaguely Americanised British. 

He makes eye contact with her in the mirror. 

He wanted to establish a clear alternate narrative to present to Lebedev with marked deviations from their other cover and memorise points of divergence so they wouldn't get lost. 

Khan had responded by teaching him a new swear-word in Urdu, quite loudly. 

Do you want me in just the jockstrap again, he bites back, and goes to mix drinks. 

Her sea-green eyes shine oddly in the orange light. She glances at Carter as he goes past, gaze lingering on him for a long moment as he walks away. 

Then she looks up at Raina, and smiles a dazzling smile. Her own lips are red like blood, shockingly red, curved and sharp. 

"Stimulating. Thank you. That sounds... delicious."

She rather wants him out of the jockstrap, but that probably goes without saying. 

There's small, palatable versions of Pakistani street snacks laid out on a small tray, and as Raina turns to arrange it, Lebedev gets an eyeful of the daring plunge of the back of her kameez - snow white, with gold embroidery at the hems.

"How are you finding Lahore? She can be a handful for those not used to her spirit."